Restricted formats and legality

[Alan McKinnon]

On Friday 24 March 2006 06:22, Chanchao wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 11:20 -0500, Sarunas Burdulis wrote:
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RestrictedFormats says:
> > > Some of the packages listed here may be illegal
> > > in your country. This page is not legal advice.
> >
> > Given a package and a country, where does one start in finding
> > out whether it's legal or not?...
>
> Good question. I always assumed it was just a legal
> disclaimer/cop-out in the full knowledge that everyone and his pet
> hamster would just smile wryly and install the lot.

Nope. It's a serious legal point. Not all developers and users share 
the arrogant "So what are you gonna do about it?" attitude from a 
certain company based in Redmond.

> "Wink wink, nudge nudge, now get on with things"

No. Debian goes to extraordinary lengths to stay within the law, 
regardless of how obscene the law may be. Same with Ubuntu.

> I don't think anyone honestly expects the Spanish MP3 Inquisition
> to come banging on the door.

You obviously don't read /. or The Register, and haven't kept current 
with the latest shenanigans surrounding the RIAA, MPAA, DRM and 
software patents (Blackberry anyone?)

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan at linuxholdings dot co dot za
+27 82, double three seven, one nine three five