Re: Initial Proposal to solve this non-US issue
>> "j" == john <john@dhh.gt.org> writes:
j> I recently uploaded chrony to master. As far as I know the package
j> is legal everywhere, and it includes no mention of legalities of
j> any sort. If my proposal had been in effect, I would have uploaded
j> *exactly* the same package. You seem to believe that were some
j> French user to learn the hard way that chrony is illegal in France
j> I would be liable in the latter case, but not the former. Why?
You have a point there I believe. If you drive too fast in a foreign
country, then this is a misprision whether you knew about the general
speed limit or did not. There is no difference. The german idiom for
this is "ignorance doesn't protect from punishment".
If there is a field "forbidden to use in country:" and the
maintainer doesn't fill in country A, then you can *not* deduct it is
allowed in country A (unless this is stated otherwise).
For now, we just seperate packages to non-us which are clearly illegal
in some country. This is done wrt to the laws we know. Maybe in
country A you can't use package X. It is still in main. Is the
maintaine liable because he didn't state this?
By putting a package in non-us, we react to a limitation we know
about. With the new header we wouldn't do anything else, but we would
have a greater gradation.
The current setup just says "not in main", although a package would be
unrestricted in some countries. This is a save side approach.
The new setup would be more distinctive.
One problem: We say "not in main for A and B", but "C" should have
been included as well. The maintainer doesn't know about this.
Is the a problem, because he had a option to include "C"? I don't
think the problem is greater than it is now. This case is like a
package, which is not in "non-us" because the maintainer doesn't know
about some limitation.
But the US legal system is rather obscure, so the statement above may
not be true there. I heared about microwave oven instructions stating
"do not dry your pet in the oven", because someone did and said "it
didn't say I must not do this" and actually won in court... X-/
Interesting question. If a maintainer puts a package in main, which
may not be used in the US and GB and he is from France, what are the
legal consequences also wrt liability? What if he didn't know about
the prohibition?
On -private some student said he could do some legal research. Maybe
this is a case he could look at.
Ciao,
Martin
PS: Good, international layers must make tons of money.
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