On Tuesday 03 February 2009 08:11:41 Kevin Kofler wrote: > Eli Wapniarski wrote: > > Problem here is that it isn't a Fedora issue, but a Redhat issue. It > > isn't a legal issue either but a sales decision. > > RHEL sales decisions should not affect Fedora. Unless there's a strong > legal liability issue involved (and I don't see how, given that Fedora is > not based in China or one of those other countries where some flags of > currently-existing (we're not talking about the WW2 Germany flag here!) > countries (or "provinces" ;-) ) are banned), I don't see how such sales > decisions should be relevant to Fedora. If we ban everything which is > banned in some country, we'll have nothing to ship! > Absolutely agree. There is no legal liability issue in every country other than in China. Which means that if you include the flags people living in the Peoples Republic of China will not be able to legally use Fedora. Which means that any maverick out there could potentially face prosecution depending on the mood of the authorities over there or, potentially have every download site with a Fedora distro blocked by The Great Firewall of China. Meaning the people over there won't be able to get Fedora at all. Putting the flags in a third party repository allows us users to install the flags if we want them (we do want them don't we). If a maverick chooses to install them, then they can do so with eyes wide open if, of course, The Great Firewall of China will allow them access to the repositories. I realize for most of us it's a freedom of speech issue. I agree it sucks big time. But, we don't live in China. And with 3rd party repos we can be "polite" while having our cake and eating it too. The Chinese can get Fedora without us picking a fight we can't win. Eli -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
