Re: [PROPOSAL] Allowing crypto in the main archive

[Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org>]

Raul Miller writes:

> On Thu, 11 Jan 2001, Wichert Akkerman wrote:
> > > non-US/main, since the license to the software itself is free.
> 
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 02:47:57PM +0100, Adrian Bunk wrote:
> > But if I don't misunderstand chapter 7 (and 8) of the GPL a program
> > licenced under the GPL that is threatened by a patent may no longer be
> > DFSG-free.
> 
> 7: Basically, those threats don't excuse you from the GPL requirements:
> if you can't grant GPL terms to someone, then you can't distribute under
> the GPL to anyone.
> 
> This would be non-DFSG if we couldn't distribute it at all.

You can certainly say "this _archive_ is only for the use of residents of the
following countries" and even try to enforce that, as long as you don't
actually try to prevent the software from being spread by other people into
those countries.  It's been demonstrated pretty often that the GPL doesn't
require you to distribute software to anyone, it just forbids you to forbid
someone else to distribute the software to anyone.

So this is a different issue.  GPL 7 is all about what rights you grant to
people who do get a copy of the software (and correspondingly what
restrictions you don't place on those individuals), not about whom you
choose to distribute the software to (which is still entirely your own
prerogative).

> 8: if some country makes GPL distribution impossible, it's ok to ignore
> that country.
> 
> I'm not sure about this -- it feels like our non-US, but of course it's
> slightly different.

That only applies to the original author, not a downstream distributor.  The
author is the only one who is allowed to make that choice.

I've never actually seen anyone use GPL 8; certainly no free software
I've ever downloaded had a prominent notice of restriction to certain
countries.  A distributor like Debian presumably wouldn't be allowed to
add such a notice.

I think Adrian Bunk's point above is correct: if the author exercises GPL 8,
then that software is no longer DFSG-free!  (Its distribution terms will
then discriminates against groups of persons.)

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen@loyalty.org>  | And do not say, I will study when I
Temp.  http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/  | have leisure; for perhaps you will
down:  http://www.loyalty.org/   (CAF)  | not have leisure.  -- Pirke Avot 2:5