Linuxoutlaws

probe

http://media.libsyn.com/media/linuxoutlaws/linuxoutlaws134.mp3

Fabian Scherschel is in a fighting mood this week. Sourceforge has started censoring who can download open source stuff - and blocking people in Cuba, Syria among other states from accessing open source software.

America doesn't own open source - the entire world has contributed to it. However Iceland is not on the list of banned countries - even though Iceland is a "terrorist state" under British law.

No doubt it is only a matter of time before Obama and Brown meet and agree to ban the Icelandic terrorist state from access to open source too...

While one might have been pro-Obama a year ago, Bush is now beginning to look increasingly intelligent and cuddly by comparison!

http://media.libsyn.com/media/linuxoutlaws/linuxoutlaws134.ogg

Johnboy1951

Latest announcement from Source Forge is that they will give the project owner the facility to allow the download of their project to the banned destinations.

Of course that still leaves US citizens who release under GPL the problem of whether to comply with US law or to allow their software to be freely available.

If they make it free then they are subject to the rigors of US law.

If they do not permit their software to be freely available then it cannot comply with the GPL.

Quite a difficulty.

If the law is applied fully it would seem to be the death-knell of open source software from the US.

probe

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Latest announcement from Source Forge is that they will give the project owner the facility to allow the download of their project to the banned destinations.

Of course that still leaves US citizens who release under GPL the problem of whether to comply with US law or to allow their software to be freely available.

If they make it free then they are subject to the rigors of US law.

If they do not permit their software to be freely available then it cannot comply with the GPL.

Quite a difficulty.

If the law is applied fully it would seem to be the death-knell of open source software from the US.

In this week's netcast, Scherschel (the guy is recovering from some bug) indicates that Sourceforge has backed down, somewhat, and they are giving the option to each software developer as to whether or not to censor distribution/availability of their product.

America is rapidly going down the toilet in terms of innovation, rapidly followed by the EU, with 10km long airport queues for security, x-rays, internet snooping, and bureaucracy increasing everywhere one looks - job creation for bureaucrats. Meanwhile Asia is powering ahead creating real value.

Racist/oil grabbing politicians and bureaucrats whose nasty agenda is more important to them than the economic welfare and quality of life of the people who vote for them (a "joke" in many countries) and pay their salaries and the world in general need to be "brought to book".

Fabian Scherschel for EU president! :-) Time to replace the stale people in control with something refreshing..... Give the job to Fabian for a month and see how he gets on with the task...

http://media.libsyn.com/media/linuxoutlaws/linuxoutlaws135.mp3

YourSQL

this is really terrible carry on for a site like sourceforge. i remember a few years ago the iranians weren't allowed to use windows so they had to use linux, now they cant use that either?

i suppose the only good news is that sourceforge software is on 100's of FTP mirrors around the world and i'd say very few of them are inaccessible from these 'unpopular' countries

Tillotson

SourceForge is a US company which is forced to comply with a trade embargo and there are any number of ways to distribute source code. If you need a free online repo github is better anyway.

I don't get why people are getting so worked up about this.

Sheeps

yase im sure this will stop the terrorists getting their hands on linux

Sheeps

the majority of terrorists use windows anyway so its nbd

Johnboy1951

Tillotson wrote: »

SourceForge is a US company which is forced to comply with a trade embargo and there are any number of ways to distribute source code. If you need a free online repo github is better anyway.

I don't get why people are getting so worked up about this.

Well it means essentially that there can be no open source releases under the GPL from those subject to USA laws. (if the laws are to be complied with and/or enforced)

I think that is something to get worked up about! :mad: :eek:

Tillotson

Erm yes there can be.

This probably won't affect anyone except sourceforge. Worst case scenario is US citizens can't intentionally ship either binaries or source code to the embargoed countries. It's a bit of an exaggeration to say "there can be no open source releases under the GPL from those subject to USA laws". There's nothing in the GPL saying that your software has to be available to every person on the planet.

I agree it's a dick move on the part of the US government, but as a whole, this is a pretty non-consequential part of the embargo.

bman

Tillotson wrote: »

There's nothing in the GPL saying that your software has to be available to every person on the planet.

It mightn't say it has to available to everyone on the planet (that would require hooking everyone on the planet up with an internet connection). But it does say:

No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups The license must not discriminate against any person or group of persons.

No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor The license must not restrict anyone from making use of the program in a specific field of endeavor. For example, it may not restrict the program from being used in a business, or from being used for genetic research.

Source: http://www.metadot.com/index.pl?iid=2607

probe

YourSQL wrote: »

i remember a few years ago the iranians weren't allowed to use windows so they had to use linux, now they cant use that either?

1) Weren't they lucky not to be subjected to windows !

2) There are lots of other sources of Linux stuff, aside from racist refusnic developers hosting on sourceforge..

MrVestek

Get them all connected to the HEAnet ftp mirrors.

Sorted :P

Nichololas

probe wrote: »

America is rapidly going down the toilet in terms of innovation, rapidly followed by the EU, with 10km long airport queues for security, x-rays, internet snooping, and bureaucracy increasing everywhere one looks - job creation for bureaucrats. Meanwhile Asia is powering ahead creating real value.

Could be worse though.

We could live in Australia.