Re: Corrected message ?
Martin Mitchell wrote:
> Government restriction?? and which government would that be.. the US
> Government by any chance?
Possibly - possibly not. Other countries (France?) have laws against
encryption. There are notes in the New Developer's Guide on what to do
if your country prohibts encryption, possibly even for identification,
which I assume were added because there was a reason to add them. If we
went to 100 GB media and included Project Gutenberg books as packages,
we would be in trouble as several are legal to distribute in America but
not in Britian, due to copyright laws.
> In the majority of countries around the world, many non-US packages are perfectly DFSG free.
And in some parts of the world, many main packages are restricted.
> You are thinking of this from a very US-centric point of view.
Pot and kettle.
>
> > I do think that there are situations where it's difficult to draw
> > the free/non-free line. I think _only_ main is unconditionally free
> > for use - if I were giving someone a set of Debian CD's, I could give
> > them main knowing that main is self consistent and complete in itself.
>
> No, again I point out that main is determined by the DFSG. It cannot take
> into account the vagaries of local law, it would be impossible to
> administer.
But what's in main is determined by the vagaries of local law -
primarily US. Any major restrictions on software in major non-US
countries should be taken into account the same way.
--
David Starner - dstarner98@aasaa.ofe.org
"There's another side of heaven this way - to technical paradise" -
Black Sabbath, "Computer God"
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