This can lead to a better solution at all (was: Re: Quake is GPL)
On Sun, Dec 26, 1999 at 02:16:47PM +0100, Bart Schuller wrote:
> I would *not* ask others in different countries to do my work for me. It
> would offer no protection whatsoever.
Look, I know this message was not targeted at me, but I felt hit
because I started this thread.
The purpose of my original message was to start a discussion on
this subject. I am not worried about the good fellow that runs a debian
mirror in these countries, and I think this kind of ban is stupid
_somewhat_.
The problem is: Local stupidities (like this one) can make Debian
ilegal to redistribute, and once this kind of stupidities start to develop
in each country it will demand a real solution. I think we should think
of it now, because it is happening only in two countries and it is affecting
only packages with marginal importance to the distribution.
I know that these "stupidities" are wrong, and *I* do my best for
banning them, but it won't be of help to neither me nor the debian
distribution as a whole if Debian (or parts of it) become Ilegal in my
country. Stupidity is no way of fighting against stupidity.
> If you are an FTP admin, no one else but you is responsible for the
> legality of the content of your servers. You can ask others to do the
> checking for you, but it will not make you immune from legal troubles.
I am not even considering asking the debian developers to check
these for me, but by pointing such thing I hope we can develop a good
solution that will solve this and other potential problems. The package
pool proposal looks like a good solution, where it would be easy to make
sub-distributions that would comply with anyone's rules. This only goes
to prove that we need more flexibility in our distribution.
> Yes, this sucks really hard. Now imagine that you lived in a country
> that didn't have those stupid laws. Wouldn't you be glad of your
> freedom?
> Would you then voluntarily try to keep up and comply with the laws of
> dozens of other countries with no benefit to you whatsoever?
Yes, this sucks really hard. Now imagine if all software you had
access to was free. Wouldn't you be glad of your freedom?
Would you then voluntarily try to keep up and try to spread your
free software to other people with no benefit to you whatsoever?
We need to stop staring at our own bellybuttons (this is a local
expression translated) and start to think of ourselves as part of a world
where less than 5% of the people can be glad of its freedom and start to
care about the 95% of the world who can't. Until it reaches 100%.
--
Eduardo Marcel Maçan <macan@colband.com.br>
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