On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Arun K. Khan wrote:
My comment about export restrictions is: There are many shrink wrapped software packages from M$, Lotus, IBM etc., sold in the US that are clearly labeled "not for sale outside US/Canada" and/or "not for export outside the US/Canada" when such restrictions apply e.g. Lotus Notes server/client. I think disclaimer absolves the vendor and software author from any legalese and the total responsiblity then lies with the consumer. how would that work, since when you order it you give your address? To put a product out with export restrictions and deliberatedly and knowingly ship it to America with a sticker saying it's wrong to export it to America or some other disclaimer at the same time seems a bit ridiculous. But then again I could be having a bad day. ;-) Clueless in BC, Michael Well, actually, FreeBSD does that routinely in the installation software, with big repeated warnings that the software right on the CD you're installing from is not for export from the U.S. and Canada, is illegal to install outside the U.S. and Canada. Given the whole BSD legal hassles of a few years back, I'd bet
On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Michael Johnson wrote: they get good legal advice, (after all, they did win their settlement.) So I'd be surprised if their "Here's a neat toy, but you really shouldn't have it, even though its right here," strategy was unsound. Now, if S.u.S.E. does it I suppose that there're some who would whine about foreigners doing what US companies do as a matter of course. I'm not convinced it was a good law before the Internet, though. Now that we have the internet, it seems very silly to me. My government in action, in all its glory and power. The question is, does S.u.S.E. want to move totally out of the U.S? Or do they want to do distributions hampered by U.S. law, if only in a minor way. Besides, those who install BSD or Linux usually have found the internet and can download whatever they need from sites outside the U.S. (Or even in it, I suppose, ignoring ineffectual warnings if present.) Ed Craig epcraig@efn.org Looking for a job... - To get out of this list, please send email to majordomo@suse.com with this text in its body: unsubscribe suse-linux-e