Re: non-us

[Jules Bean <jmlb2@hermes.cam.ac.uk>]

On Fri, 12 Mar 1999, Brian May wrote:

> In article <[🔎] Pine.LNX.4.05.9903120305190.3828-100000@tao.ca> you write:
> >It would seem that we should have a non-us section in each of main,
> >contrib, and non-free, since many people would like to use non-US
> >software, while still maintaining an entirely free system. And no, saying
> >"look at /usr/doc/package/copyright" is not a clear enough answer.
> 
> Having non-US inside main would be confusing, because it would
> imply that such software is DFSG free, however, I don't think the
> DFSG allows software that has export restrictions...
> 
> Please correct me though if I am wrong...

OK.

You're wrong.

:-)

The DFSG, as far as is practicable, does not care about the legislation of
particular governments.  It cares about copyright licenses.

If the copyright license is sufficiently permissive, then the laws don't
affect the DFSG freeness - merely the practicalities of our distribution
of it.

As it happens, much of non-us is also non-free - pgp, ssh..

Jules

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