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Re: Quake is GPL



On Fri, Dec 24, 1999 at 10:56:48AM +0100, Nils Jeppe wrote:
> > I suspect that the part of Quake that the German authorities have a
> > problem with are the data files, not the game engine itself.
> 
> Yes; but Doom is banned too, and lxdoom and quake do include data files in
> the shareware versions, right? These afaik (I am not a lawayer) are banned
> too.

non-free has doom and quake shareware levels, yes on both counts.


> I don't know, after seeing the clouds of blood and gore in Quake III, I
> agree that it is really at least a "not before the age of 16" or even 18
> game. NOT something I'd want my (hypotetical) kids to play for christmas.

No kids should be playing quake3 without this December 25th without a
Christmas addon..  Let's gib Santa!  ;>

Seriously, you're right that quake (any version) and even doom are not
exactly games for kids to play.  It's my opinion however that it's not
government's place to decide to censor such things.  We also should not
let a minority of the countries which have users of Debian dictate what
Debian in the rest of the world can and can't do (that goes for the US as
well..)

I simply WILL NOT voluntarily remove either from the archive.  Not a
chance, forget it.  Whever package pools and distributed servers and all
that which can make sure that packages are available where they're allowed
but won't be available where they're not if you use the right mirrors (or
set your mirror up properly) that's great and it's a move I'd be happy to
make.

In the meantime I'm not going to do what would IMO be a disservice to the
rest of the world by denying mostly adults anyway a fun way to relieve
stress and juice a few of their closest friends just because someone
somewhere thinks violent games are offensive or something.  If you don't
like it, don't play it.  If that's not enough, set up your mirror script
to skip those packages.


> We probably should at least put a big disclaimer on the packages. Is it
> possible to get a prompt when you SELECT a package which states "this
> package is banned in country xyz; by installing it you may be in violation
> of local law" blah blah?

We can't control what users do with the software.  We can't claim to try.
id can't be responsible if someone in .br downloads quake since where id
is located, quake isn't a problem.  We don't have the responsibility to
not distribute quake.  A Brazillian mirror probably has the responsibility
to set up their scripts not to mirror quake and a Brazillian user might
have the responsibility not to download it from anywhere else in the
world, but that isn't my concern.

Part of the problem is we don't have an easy way to partially mirror
things right now and build a packages file locally based on the results.
Seems the need for this is on the rise what with all the FUCKING MORONS in
governments today seeming to think censorship is suddenly such a wonderful
idea.

-- 
- Joseph Carter         GnuPG public key:   1024D/DCF9DAB3, 2048g/3F9C2A43
- knghtbrd@debian.org   20F6 2261 F185 7A3E 79FC  44F9 8FF7 D7A3 DCF9 DAB3
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