On Tue, 2005-11-29 at 18:17 -0500, ryan wrote:
> Its very debatable. What is "illegal redistribution" in one country is not in
> another.
Please name a country?
> Of course, I'm sure MS doesn't like it when third world countries engage in
> rampant copying/distribution of Windows and Office - but I bet most of those
> countries have no laws on their books that make software "piracy" illegal.
Bull! They _do_. They just don't enforce them! Lack of enforcement
does _not_ mean "legal." Just because the piracy rate in Japan is 92%
and places like Singapore is 99% (oh the irony of their "values" ;-)
does _not_ mean it's "legal" to illegally copy works.
They just don't enforce it. _Huge_ difference!
> What is illegal in Redmond, USA is not necessarily illegal in the rest of the
> world and vice versa.
But countries that have signed certain international treaties and laws
on copyrights with the United States _are_ bound by them. Even China is
bound by man agreements they have signed, and their lack of enforcement
is a powerful bargaining tool right now with their membership (or
potential membership) in various organizations.
Again, we are _way_off_ the path of my _original_ point. You guys can
really argue to the point of absolute futility on these matters, but
CentOS and its repositories -- like Fedora Core/Extras, official Debian
repositories, etc... -- are designed so they are 100% redistributable
(and are not necessarily 100% open source, read all the licenses ;-).
That way there are _no_ legal issues with redistribution into another
project, for consultants and integrators, etc... If you really "don't
care" and just freely redistribute Gentoo, Ubuntu, Knoppix (non-official
releases with 100% pure Debian), etc... then please do _not_ step foot
in any corporation I consult for or work at. ;->
--
Bryan J. Smith mailto:b.j.smith@xxxxxxxx
http://thebs413.blogspot.com
------------------------------------------
Some things (or athletes) money can't buy.
For everything else there's "ManningCard."
