Re: Quake is GPL
On Sun, Dec 26, 1999 at 01:56:00PM +0100, Christian Kurz wrote:
> > I've tried to be nice in this discussion. I'm no longer trying.
>
> > I WILL NOT CRIPPLE MY QUAKE PACKAGES TO SATISFY THE STUPIDITY INHERENT IN
> > THE LAWS OF EXACTLY TWO COUNTRIES IN THE ENTIRE WORLD THAT I KNOW OF. I
> > CONSIDER THE LAWS THEMSELVES CENSORSHIP AT THEIR CORE AND THEREFORE
> > MORALLY REPREHENSIBLE.
>
> > Is that perhaps a little clearer?
>
> I never said that someone should cripple a package. Stop assuming things
> that I don't say. And also I'm not talking about censorship. I'm just
> reminding you that some FTP-Maintainer may stand half in jail because
> they don't have the f****ng time to go through the whole debian archive
> for excluding every software that's illegal in their country. We should
> provide them with a possible solution for excluding such a software,
> because you can change a government in one day or because some people
> think they are more important.
>
> Ciao
> Christian
>
> P.S.: I wonder what you would do if you are such a maintainer who could
> be with half an leg in jail.
My $0.02:
Yes, it's a pain for the FTP maintainer to have to figure out what packages
he can legally mirror. But you take on some responsibilities when you become
an FTP maintainer, just as when you become a package maintainer. What you're
asking would be to require all Debian developers to be legal experts
and know how legal their packages are in every location in the world.
Otherwise, any system of indicating what packages are illegal where would
fail. For all intents and purposes, such a system is impossible. If you
don't have the time or the inclination to make sure that you're in
compliance with the laws of the government under whose rule you reside, then
as much as I hate to say it, that's your problem. If you can't handle the
responsibilities of being a <fill in the blank>, then you have no business
being one. The same can be said for anything. No offense to you intended,
of course.
--
Mike Markley <mike@markley.org>
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