Archive of patent-encumbered software

["Sunnanvind" <sunnanvind@fenderson.com>]

A thousand years ago, or two months ago or so, I wrote to debian-legal 
suggesting that Debian split non-US into two parts, crypto and patents. 
They say third time's a charm, so I guess this won't be a charm.

When I wrote that, I was under the impression that non-US was for both 
crypto and patents. Which would've been weird; since there are different 
laws for both, in different parts of the world. I was indeed a foolish 
fool.

Now, I was reading random messages from the archives (didn't feel like 
reading all messages on all archives, not at the moment anyway, so 
apologies if this has come up often) and it seems like according to 
policy, non-US is only for crypto. (In one of the "woody freeze update 
posts" by aj he wrote that the issue on whether crypot could be moved to 
main or not was settled, but not what the outcome was. Will it or won't 
it? I'm concerned because the US isn't the only country with restrictions 
on crypto.)

Anyway, as many people know, there are (or has been) software in non-US 
that are there because of patent problems, policy-breaking as this may be.

Now, I'm living in Sweden where software patents as far as I know are 
void. I wish that there was a part of Debian that could distribute 
software like for example Lame; it could be positioned in a country that 
doesn't have software patents at all.

Reasons:

1) There are Debian users and developers in countries where software 
patents are void.
2) There might be people living in countries where software patents are 
valid who would like to choose to violate those laws.
3) There might be law-abiding people living in countries where software 
patents are valid who has a patent license and thus may use some patented 
software.

Personally, I don't like software patents. I mean no offense to those on 
the list who do approve of them, but I don't. Regardless: should one 
country's law rule the whole universe of Debian users? What is the 
universal operating system?

Now, there's no actual *point* to this message (except my crypto-in-main 
question above), I just want to state my wish for such an archive so that 
people will think about it, consider it, and maybe act on it.

Best wishes,
Sunnanvind Fenderson.