Re: Quake is GPL
[Stop sending me Ccs of the answers. I read debian-devel and I only need
the list answer!]
On 99-12-24 jesdynf wrote:
> On Fri, 24 Dec 1999, Christian Kurz wrote:
> > current laws here in germany and then maybe close the FTP-Server just
> > because it may be illegal to distribute quake and the FTP-Server is
> > located at the firm, where I work. So plese don't upload software in the
> > debian-archives, that is/could be illegal in some countries.
> You know, I was thinking about packages being illegal in various
> countries, and it's something of a knotty problem -- but I think I came up
> with a solution.
I think it's a special a problem for the FTP-Maintainer in those
countries as they stand with one legal in jail if they have such a
software on their FTP-Server. Especially here in Germany this can become
problematic because of the new laws like TDDSG and so on.
> How about a virtual package, "task-legal-germany" or something, that
> conflicts with all the packages that the Debian developers believe
> are illegal by the named nation?
No, this won't solve the problem, as the software which is illegal would
still reside on the FTP-Server and so you still have the problem which I
described above. And I will definitiv shut down the new mirror as soon
as quake is in the archive and my lawyer says, that it's illegal.
> You'd have to put a disclaimer saying that the Debian developers were only
> making a good-faith effort to keep task-legal-* up to date, I bet. But
> there'd be nothing stopping somebody from removing the package, and all
> its nasty conflicts, if they felt like it.
No, that's not a solution, as the software is still on your server and
also the users can easily fetch by faking their home-country. At the
moment the only solution for this conflict, which I see, would be to add
only an installer for quake to debian, that fetches the necessary tar.gz
from an country where it's not illegal. The installer isn't illegal and
could reside so on the FTP-Servers and the maintainer are not with half
an leg in jail.
Ciao
Christian
--
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* Christian Kurz Debian Developer/QA-Team *
* Use Debian - a free Operating System *
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