CD images and US export laws
On Wed, 24 May 2000, Mike Bilow wrote:
> This is exactly what I do NOT want. Calling the image "US domestic" would
> lead to CD makers in the US incorrectly pressing that version. No one
> really wants to press the US-exportable version at all!
Ah. So why bother creating one? If I were in charge (which I'm not) I'd
just make a single CD image. It would have to be hosted outside the US,
of course. Any CD vendor outside the US could sell it anywhere they like.
Any vendor inside the US could sell it to the domestic market.
If someone outside the US was silly enough to want to buy a CD from a US
company, it would be up to that vendor to take apart the ISO file, remove
the non-exportable bits, and make an exportable CD. IMO, that puts the
complexity where it should be: the commercial folks have to worry about
the laws, not the Debian volunteers.
> The only reason the US-exportable
> version exists is for electronic mirrors within the US.
Ah, yes. In my fantasy scenario nobody in the US could host a public
mirror of the CD image. Is that a big loss?
-smr
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