On Sat, 16 Jul 2005 13:04:47 +0200 Diego Biurrun wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 01:49:17PM -0300, Humberto Massa Guimarães
> wrote:
[...]
> > I was under the impression that Debian *did* have a policy: if the
> > patent is enforced, towards it, then the software will go to non_US
> > -- to the benefit of the sane jurisdictions (as is the EU, in
> > principle).
>
> And to what extent is that policy followed? Neither libdts nor the
> many multimedia players available in Debian appear to be in non-US.
>
> How can I get an overview of all the packages in non-US? Looking on
> Debian mirrors just reveals empty packages files:
>
> http://non-us.debian.org/debian-non-US/dists/sarge/non-US/main/binary-i386/Packages
Actually, AIUI, this is not (and never was) the role of non-US.
non-US was used to distribute software that couldn't be exported from
the USA to other countries.
This prohibition was due to some (absurd) US laws regarding strong
cryptography (seen as a *weapon*). However US laws didn't forbid anyone
from *importing* the same software into the USA from abroad.
The consequence was that a server placed outside of the US homeland
could distribute these export-restricted software tools to anyone
everywhere.
non-us.debian.org was such a server.
The only necessary precaution was that US citizens had to remember to
*not* redistribute any package got from non-us.debian.org to people
outside USA.
Now that those US laws have been heavily relaxed, there's no point
anymore in having a non-US section.
As you can read in Sarge release notes[1], non-US is now obsoleted.
[1] http://www.debian.org/releases/sarge/releasenotes
--
:-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-)
......................................................................
Francesco Poli GnuPG Key ID = DD6DFCF4
Key fingerprint = C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
Attachment:
pgpUlpyPLl9Fm.pgp
Description: PGP signature