[GUFSC] [Fwd: Re: Question about governmental power over Free Software]

[Ricardo Grützmacher]

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Aqui está a resposta que recebi sobre o caso das restrições de 
exportação impostas pelos EUA.


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>From - Fri Jul 19 22:10:06 2002
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Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2002 18:17:48 -0400
From: Free Software Foundation <licensing@gnu.org>
To: Ricardo Gr?tzmacher <grutz@terra.com.br>
Cc: licensing@gnu.org
Subject: Re: Question about governmental power over Free Software
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On Thu, Jul 18, 2002 at 05:38:22PM -0300, Ricardo Gr?tzmacher wrote:
| I want to know if this statement in Mozilla's license means that U.S. 
| government can prohibit a free software to be distributed to some countries.
| 
| 
| ------
| Mozilla 1.0 is our most recent stable release. We make binary versions
| of Mozilla 1.0 available for testing purposes only! We provide no end
| user support. Feel free to use one of our mirrors.
| This source code is subject to the U.S. Export Administration
| Regulations and other U.S. law, and may not be exported or re-exported
| to certain countries (currently Afghanistan (Taliban controlled areas),
| Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) or to
| persons or entities prohibited from receiving U.S. exports (including
| Denied Parties, entities on the Bureau of Export Administration Entity
| List, and Specially Designated Nationals).
| ------
| 
| If this is true, is it not strange that the name ``Free Software'' would 
| mean ``Free'' as in ``Free Speach'' only in some contexts?
 |
| In this way it seems that powerful nations can impose restrictions on 
| users even though the developer wished freedom to the public by 
| releasing it as free software.

Certainly, there is nothing that the GPL can do to stop US law from
being stupid.  Only lobbying and voting can do that.  And bribes.  Did
you bribe your legislator today? ;)

| Does the GPL violate de export restrictions? Does the export 
| restrictions have some problems with GPL?

The GPL doesn't violate any laws that I know of.  And the GPL allows
(section 8) copyright holders to add geographic restrictions for cases
like this.  

-Dave Turner
Free Software Licensing Guru
This is not legal advice.  If you need legal advice, see a lawyer



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