Proposed legal guidelines change re "illegal" packages

[Ralf Corsepius]

On 11/11/2010 10:26 PM, Behdad Esfahbod wrote:
> Hi board,
>
> I read the lwn coverage of the discussion going on re packaging of software
> that is illegal.  In particular, the proposed change:
>
> "Where, objectively speaking, the package has essentially no useful
> foreseeable purposes other than those that are highly likely to be
> illegal or unlawful in one or more major jurisdictions in which Fedora
> is distributed or used, such that distributors of Fedora will face
> heightened legal risk if Fedora were to include the package, then the
> Fedora Project Board has discretion to deny inclusion of the package for
> that reason alone."

Fedora should stay with respecting the laws which are directly 
applicable to it, i.e. US laws and not try to be compliant with each and 
every law which may be applicable somewhere on this planet.

> I just want to make a note that in many oppressing countries, say, Iran,
> China, etc, many filtering circumvention and privacy tools may be illegal.  It
> would be wrong to exclude such tools from Fedora.

There is no need to restrict this consideration to these countries.
Many countries have some kind of law active which may prohibit 
distributing Fedora for one or the other legal reason.

For example, my home-country has very restricitive youth protection 
regulations on "computer games", Fedora is not complying with, which 
potentially endangers everybody who is distributing/selling Fedora media 
(esp. DVDs) in Germany[1,2].

Ralf

[1] 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiwillige_Selbstkontrolle_der_Filmwirtschaft

[2] 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundespr%C3%BCfstelle_f%C3%BCr_jugendgef%C3%A4hrdende_Medien