Re: Are DFSG free package in non-us part of Debian?

[Dale Scheetz <dwarf@polaris.net>]

I remember the first time that I suggested, on this list, that the US was
a police state, several people told me that I should not say such things,
as there were some folks who "actually" lived in police states. Now I see
the term being used as "common knowledge". It is good to see that the
awareness of this problem has increased in this group.

Regrettably, I live in this police state, and I'm not sure that I would be
much more "free" somewhere else, but am without the resources to discover
that.

So.....

On 15 Nov 1998, Manoj Srivastava wrote:

> Hi
> >>"Martin" == Martin Schulze <joey@finlandia.Infodrom.North.DE> writes:
> 
>  Martin> Since it cannot redistributed by a US citizen to a non-us citizen
>  Martin> it is not *perfectly* free.
> 
> 	Oh bullshit. What makes the US government the deciding
>  authority? What if Saddam Hussein decides that vi is not
>  freely importable into IRAQ, you shall decide vi is not free? Why
>  does the US government have that kind of control over Debian? 
> 
Because the US would clearly bomb Saddam until he released vi from such
slavery. Isn't that always the way the bully gets his way? Aren't we
simply trying to "deal" with the bully in some fashion?

> 	We may need to move our archives to a free country before we
>  can technically have packages in US/main depend on packages in

This doesn't change anything, and makes the rest of main a hostage to US
policy. In any case, one man's freedom is another's oppression, so there
probably isn't a truely free spot on the globe.

>  non-US/main, but this crap about the US being the center of the
>  universe makes my skin crawl.
> 
If you insist on letting things you can't control bother you, your skin is
going to crawl for most of your life.

> 	This may be news to you, folks, but the united states of
>  america is not the center of the known universe. Get over it.
> 
It is the perception of more than Americans only. Get over it.

>  Martin> Believe me that I don't like it either but I cannot fix
>  Martin> broken US crypto law by programming.  Please talk to the
>  Martin> american senat or something, try to get involved with EFF and
>  Martin> similar campaigns.
> 
> 	Rubbish. Just move master to a free country. I am sure we can
>  achieve that, eventually.

And how does that, unlike programming, provide a solution to the broken US
crypto laws?

> 
>  Martin> We also cannot include it into main since it is not freely
>  Martin> redistributable.
> 
> 	It is too freely distributable. We can't help it that you live
>  in a police state.
> 
With that atitude everyone could end up living in a police state.

There are things we can do to make software free. There are some things we
can't change with software, and there are some things we can't change at
all. While US crypto laws may fall into one of the above catagories, I'm
not convinced that it can't be fixed. However, the DFSG has nothing to do
with this issue. Software freedom is about the rights given to you by the
author, not by how those rights may be restricted by the local bully, or
government.

Luck, 

Dwarf
--
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aka   Dale Scheetz                   Phone:   1 (850) 656-9769
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      e-mail:  dwarf@polaris.net     Tallahassee, FL  32308

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