On Wed, Dec 06, 2000 at 01:22:58PM -0700, John Galt wrote: > > By the SDNY's injunction being as broad as it is, I would submit that > libcss is under injunction. You know the text of the injunction, > Brian--I've seen your comments on it on the harvard list. In fact, > you could read that the injunction applies to every warm body on Earth and > every program that looks like it could possibly transfer a bit off a > DVD. The MPAA picked a good judge--he stayed bought. However, this is > needless worrying about probability.
An injunction applies only to the people named in it. Debian is not named in this injunction. Software in the Public Interest is not named in the injunction. AFIK, nobody that runs any of the Debian master or mirror sites is named. So long as the package maintainer is also not named in the injunction, nobody's violating the injunction. Immagine the following situation: A person in a group typically stereotyped by media and law enforcement as "shady" is falsely accused of using and distributing a packet sniffer tool for Microsoft Windows called wnsniff in order to conduct or help others conduct unlawful wiretaps. A civil lawsuit is filed in federal court. The person prepares for trial with inadequite time and legal representation, faces a biased judge, and get enjoined from using or distributing packet sniffers. The decision is appealed. Would Debian refuse to permit packet sniffers such as tcpdump and ethereal in main just because they may be illegal for a small handful of people in the US to use or distribute? Would someone trying to package an ethernet sniffing library called libsniff see any trouble with their ITP? Of course not. Let's be reasonable here. > [other stuff deleted] -- Brian Ristuccia [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
