[ox-en] Free Software's Freeness Guarenteed by US Army Invasion of Iraq*?!
- From: auskadi <auskadi tvcabo.co.mz>
- Date: Sun, 07 Sep 2003 09:45:31 +0200
In the light of the last post I made about Open Source and Denied
Parties I thought this story and discussion on newsforge might be of
some interest.
They guy who originated this storm seemed to think that the US Army's
actions in Iraq somehow made the world (or more properly the US) a safer
place for free software. Whats more it seems that the guy thought that
if someone invaded the US they would crack down on his ability to write
free software:
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/09/02/1930234.shtml?tid=51
In one way the guy may have apoint but not the one he articlulated ...
it is arguable that has the US Army sucks various locales into the
global system (aka Empire) they get to be strcuk off the list of
countries that it is prohibited by US Law to export open source/free
software to ... thus making those countries "free" to be able to
download Mozilla without worrying about the legal implications arising...
See for example this discussion on the linuxiran list:
http://www.mail-archive.com/bna-linuxiran nongnu.org/msg00223.html
It seems that these discussions and the US law and discussion thereof
previously posted raise the spectre of an open source not quite as free
as we might have liked to believe or decieve ourselves ... constrained
by law, geography and trade barriers as it appears ... but maybe the
problem what is or who decides what is "free" be it free software, free
speech or the free world.
--
Martin Hardie
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