What do we think of this?

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On Tue, 2007-03-27 at 13:32 -0400, Christopher Blizzard wrote:
> On Tue, 2007-03-27 at 09:53 -0500, Tom "spot" Callaway wrote:
> > Honestly, I think all of these comments come from one pivotal issue:
> > 
> > Fedora won't break US law.
> > 
> > Debian will. Ubuntu will. SuSE will. Gentoo will.
> > 
> > Thus, there is no need for "extra" repositories to arise for these Linux
> > distributions. And the average user wants to have software that breaks
> > the law (mp3, dvd, etc). So they have to go outside the safety zone that
> > is the distribution for Fedora, and here there be dragons.
> > 
> > This problem sucks. It has always sucked. We're playing by the rules,
> > where no one else is, and we're getting punished for it, while they
> > prosper.
> > 
> > The rules (US law) are broken. I just have no idea how to fix it in my
> > lifetime, much less in the period of relevance for Fedora.
> 
> Is there a reason why we don't say this widely?  It's a compelling and
> simple to understand meme (free/non-free/illegal/illegal aside.)

Because we'd be accusing other groups of breaking the law. Thats
potentially libel. I doubt Red Hat wants to take that kind of risk,
whereas I am personally willing (I've got a pretty strong case that
they're violating US patent law and the DMCA, and while I'd be more than
happy to see these laws repealed, they're still the laws on the books).

~spot