Re: WARNING: Crypto software to be included into main Debian distribution
On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 01:30:09PM -0800, Walter Landry wrote:
> It does suck that Debian doesn't have integrated crypto. I never
> claimed otherwise. I live in the US and I hate it. But that doesn't
> change the fact that I can't export code to people and say, "Do
> whatever you want with it." The law prevents me, and it prevents
> Debian.
I'm sorry, but this isn't the case. The law prevents you from distributing
the software to people who're going to use it for the purposes of
creating nuclear weapons and what not. That's fine, you're not required
to distribute free software to everyone who asks for it. Nor is it an
extra use restriction, and nor is it a transitive one.
And frankly, no, you _can't_ export code and say "Do whatever you want
with it" in that sense: you can't export gcc to a T7 country and tell
them, "go ahead, use it to build a nuclear arsenal".
> > Since the entire point of US mirrors is to make Debian available to
> > US citizens, and that this doesn't interfere at all with what non-US
> > mirrors do, this isn't considered a problem.
> If the software was only made available to US citizens, then there
> would be no issue. However, how do you think that the non-US mirrors
> get their copies?
By mirroring it, legally, from the US. What they do from then on is a
matter for copyright treaties and local laws.
I realise equivalence transformations and transitivity are things we're
used to using in logical analysis, but they just do not apply in this
case. That's why we went and got legal advice from a lawyer instead of
just making it up on our own.
> I was wondering how long it would take for someone to explicitly
> attack me personally, rather than the arguments I give.
Well, I'm sorry, but unless you're a trained lawyer, you just don't
have any credibility on the matter. The law is a complicated thing, and
when we've got an expert's considered opinion contradicting an amateur's
take on events, well, it's obvious which one we're going with. Further,
since you're not a developer and generally have utterly no stake in this,
there's no point arguing moral justifications or whether this is really
"free" or other pointless hogwash.
> People seem
> incredibly uppity about this whole subject, including yourself,
> Anthony.
It's funny how that happens when you spend, what, over ten months working
on getting competent advice on an important issue, to have twits decide
that, no, the advice is wrong and really it's more important to be able
to have an official ftp.iq.debian.org than to have crypto usable.
You are wrong, and you don't understand what's going on, and you persist
in ignoring the expert advice that's easily available to you. And you
wonder why this is annoying?
> I'm actually more concerned
> with the various licenses that we distribute code under that don't
> allow us to add additional use restrictions.
The only place we're adding use restrictions is in your mind.
Cheers,
aj
--
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
We came. We Saw. We Conferenced. http://linux.conf.au/
``Debian: giving you the power to shoot yourself in each
toe individually.'' -- with kudos to Greg Lehey
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