Re: CoC policy for package contents
On Jul 23, 2025 20:18, Soren Stoutner <soren@debian.org> wrote:
>
> I agree with all of the above. I believe this is already Debian’s de facto
> policy, but any Code of Acceptable Content we develop should explicitly state
> that Debian will not distribute illegal content in the jurisdictions we
> support, and that, because Debian will never perform age verification on its
> users, that means that Debian will not distribute material that is illegal for
> minors in jurisdictions it supports.
>
> The distinction about jurisdictions we support is important. As regional
> variations in laws increases, we are soon going to have to confront
> difficulties in local laws prohibiting fundamental aspects of Debian’s
> mission. For example, I do not think it will be too far distant when some
> parts of the world will make the DFSG 5 "No Discrimination Against Persons or
> Groups” and DFSG 6 "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor” illegal by
> requiring software distributions to discriminate against persons, groups, and
> fields of endeavor. At that point, we are going to have to decide if we will
> lower our standards or if we will cease to actively distribute in and support
> those jurisdictions. My expectation is that we will decide to withdraw from
> those jurisdictions rather than allow them to rewrite the DFSG. In those
> cases where we no longer support a jurisdiction because its laws conflict with
> our core principles, then abiding by the laws of that jurisdiction will no
> longer apply to the Code of Acceptable Content either.
>
> --
> Soren Stoutner
> soren@debian.org
There may be some edge cases. What if a country decided to forbid shipping youtube downloaders ? Or gambling software ?
Thomas Goirand (zigo)
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