[fab] EULA/Export Concerns

Mark Webbink mwebbink at redhat.com
Wed Jun 21 19:04:28 UTC 2006


Roozbeh is certainly welcome to his opinions, but having been through
this discussion many times before, this is a non-issue.  Fedora is
U.S.-based, and Red Hat, as its distributors, has an obligation to abide
by U.S. law regardless of what the GPL may say.  That law forbids the
export of Fedora to certain countries and individuals.  Anyone who
knowingly distributes or permits the distribution of Fedora in violation
of U.S. export control laws is subject to substantial fines and criminal
conviction.  This  is not dissimilar to the laws in other countries that
regulate the import and export of goods, including computer software,
and Fedora is obligated to respect all of those.  The fact that these
laws exist does not override the intent of the licensor, i.e., that
Fedora is free software, nor does it in my legal opinion violate the GPL
(understanding that others, including the FSF, may disagree with me on
this point).  However, the GPL does not relieve anyone from complying
with the national laws in those countries within which they reside.

Mark

Patrick W. Barnes wrote:

>Roozbeh Pournader just posted the following on the fedoraproject.org wiki 
>within his personal namespace.  I wanted to bring this to everyone's 
>attention.  For Roozbeh, this is a bit of a personal issue, since export 
>control in the U.S. technically requires that we not ship Fedora to Iran, 
>where Roozbeh is located.
>
>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/RoozbehPournader/EULA
>
>  
>
>>I am planning to keep notes about the problems of the Fedora EULA here. I
>>consider this personal Fedora-related space, and am using this to help keep
>>information about the problems
>>[http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub/fedora/linux/core/development/i386/e
>>ula.txt the current EULA] creates, specially by making Fedora non-free
>>software.
>>
>>The main issues are:
>> * Fedora is not free software
>> * Fedora is not open source software
>> * Fedora violates the GNU General Public License
>> * EULAs are bad
>>
>>Random posts from my blog:
>> * http://www.advogato.org/person/roozbeh/diary.html?start=8
>> * http://www.advogato.org/person/roozbeh/diary.html?start=9
>>
>>== Fedora is not free software ==
>>
>>== Fedora is not open source ==
>>
>>== Fedora violates GPL ==
>>
>>== EULAs are bad ==
>>    
>>
>
>Further reference:
>
>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Licenses/EULA
>http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Legal/Export
>
>IANAL...
>
>I don't see merit in all of Roozbeh's concerns, but they're worth looking into 
>for the sake of Doing the Right Thing.
>
>  
>
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