Re: Debian and Cuba
On Saturday 26 March 2005 01:01 am, Josh Triplett wrote:
> To the best of my knowledge (IANAL), there is no issue with someone in
> Cuba or another embargoed country downloading Debian from
> ftp.xx.debian.org, for values of xx != us or probably a few others.
>
> Key issue here: it is *not* illegal to use Debian in Cuba[1]; it is only
> illegal for someone in the US to export it to Cuba or provide it to
> someone expected to do so.
Um, yeah, I'm not a lawyer either... but I play one at school, and I wouldn't
be so sure about that. While Cuba/US relations are pretty bad, Cuba does
have relationships with other European nations. As part of the compromise
between the US and the EU granting US permission for the EU to engage in
trade with Cuba, I would not be at all surprised that there are certain
embargo protection provisions. For example, the "The U.S. will engage trade
sanctions with the EU if the EU trades with Cuba and Cuba engages in activity
intended to subvert the U.S. embargo." You can see how this would get messy.
Now, I'm surprised to hear that Cuba would give a care about such provisions,
but if the Cubans were telling the truth when they claimed export
restrictions as their motivator for passing over Debian, this might be a
plausible explanation. That being said, a quick internet search didn't
produce any evidence to back up my point... but you know what they say about
lack of evidence :)
-Sean
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