Josh Triplett writes: > >Steve McIntyre wrote: >> >> *sigh* So much for debate. We've had this raised and debunked several >> times. WHY does a stupid local law make a license non-free? If >> somebody passes a law that prohibits distribution of source code >> without fee, would you consider the GPL to be non-free at that point? >> If the US is backward enough to attempt to restrict exports of >> software to certain states, that's NOT a problem in the licenses so >> affected. Or are we trying to make a US-centric set of DFSG now? > >To my knowledge no such laws regarding distribution of source code >without fee exist anywhere in the world, so no such problem exists; the >same can be said of most contrived examples, like "No licenses with >three-letter acronyms are acceptable" :). > >Export laws already exist in many countries, so they are a real issue, >and not just a hypothetical one. Furthermore, it would normally be >quite possible for the distributor to distribute (source and binary) to >locations they can distribute to, except that the "send sources >upstream" clause forces them to distribute to a particular third party, >who may be in any arbitrary location when they make the request. > >To put it another way, it's a specific concrete example of the Dissident >test. :)
To name another contrived example, yes. Afghanistan was home to laws banning computers and some technology altogether IIRC. Would you allow those laws to dictate that software licenses are not free? >However, if many people really do not think this is a good example, I >won't include it. I am trying to summarize general debian-legal >opinion, not just my own opinion. :) Fine, I appreciate that. I'm just beginning to think that summarising debian-legal opinion is fruitless... -- Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Into the distance, a ribbon of black Stretched to the point of no turning back
