[Fedora-legal-list] Embargoed countries IRC support policy

Tom "spot" Callaway tcallawa at redhat.com
Tue Jul 6 13:29:20 UTC 2010


On 07/05/2010 02:32 PM, Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> What is/should be Fedora's policy when it comes to helping people on IRC
> who are from embargoed countries?  I'm asking because a situation just
> happened in #fedora where someone from Iran asked for help, and someone
> from the UK refused to help.  Obviously that's their prerogative, but if
> I'm going to help them, I want to know that I'm not flouting some Fedora
> guideline.

Red Hat does not impose any legal restrictions upon the behavior of
non-Red Hat employees on public IRC. All advice delivered by non-Red Hat
employees on IRC should be considered "unofficial".

Accordingly, the Fedora Policy is as follows:

* The Fedora IRC channels (on Freenode) is not an official support
channel of Red Hat. Any advice you read in those channels is provided by
individual community members. You should use it at your OWN RISK. This
advice is owned by each individual, and does NOT represent the views of
Freenode, Fedora or Red Hat.

* Participants on Fedora IRC should not feel obligated to make any
attempt to determine the nationality of participants.

* Red Hat employees must not offer advice or assistance to individuals
on IRC who explicitly identify themselves as being from an embargoed
nation, or otherwise under US embargo. They can contact Red Hat Legal
for more information.

* All non Red Hat employees who are participants on IRC are acting
independently, and are in no way acting as agents of Red Hat.

****
My note: The use of the term "unofficial" is completely unconnected to
the reliability or accuracy of any advice delivered. It merely means
that from a legal standpoint, these individuals providing advice are not
doing so on behalf of Red Hat.

~spot



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