Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2000 08:36:53 -0400 (EDT) From: Chuck Robey <chuckr@picnic.mat.net> To: Trevor Johnson <trevor@jpj.net> Cc: Satoshi - Ports Wraith - Asami <asami@FreeBSD.ORG>, "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@zippy.osd.bsdi.com>, "Chris D. Faulhaber" <jedgar@fxp.org>, freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG, jkh@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Export controlled ports Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0007120828280.71063-100000@picnic.mat.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSI.4.21.0007120010381.24115-100000@blues.jpj.net>
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On Wed, 12 Jul 2000, Trevor Johnson wrote: > > How do you know that FreeBSD users would want this? Have you asked any? > > I don't know any of the FreeBSD users who live in those countries. I've > mentioned this to four people in private, and now I'm bringing it up on > the list. > > > Trevor asked me to start a separate non-crypto version of the ctm lists, > > and I asked him that; never did get an answer, but I did find out that he > > said he wouldn't be interested in such a feed for himself. > > I've answered all the e-mails I've gotten from you about this, and resent > my latest reply in case it didn't reach you. My suggestion was that, if > you wanted not to make life more difficult for people in those countries, > you could continue to provide your service without the crypto, eBones, > kerberos5 or secure sources. I've never run a ctm server, so maybe I'm > underestimating how difficult it would be to keep offering the same thing > you always did. I answered your email. The reason I didn't answer it before was because you responded to my request for a demonstration of user demand by telling me how easily doable the job was. Here you respond to the request for a demonstration of user demand by deducing that there "must" be some, and listing which countries would love us to comply. What I'm saying is that you have to demonstrate user demand by getting real users (real email addresses that are on the lists, and on my ctm lists in particular) who will ask for the services. Inferring their existence doesn't come close to filling the need. Foreign governments are not our clients; FreeBSD users haven't shown any interest at all in crypto-less services yet. > > I don't live in any of those places, and I'm not even using CTM at the > moment. I just wanted you to have a chance to consider the problem. > > > Trevor, if FreeBSD users don't ask for it, then it's not going to get > > done. I think the first task for you is to prove that folks want it, not > > that there are a few governments who would want to dictate to us. > > My impression is that the FreeBSD team usually does not encourage users to > disobey laws, even bad ones. For instance, in /usr/ports/LEGAL there's a > request that we not "invite needless problems" by ignoring licenses. So > far, the cryptographic code has been separated, to comply with the laws of > the United States. Now that those have changed, taking advantage by > starting to export those packages sounds great. However, with some small > measure such as naming those packages with a special prefix, or putting > them in a separate directory, people in the repressive countries I listed > could avoid downloading them, and everyone else could go ahead with little > or no difficulty. Another possibility is that someone could maintain a > list of the crypto packages. Then operators of FTP servers in countries > which restrict imports--ftp.cn.freebsd.org and ftp.ru.freebsd.org for > example--could use the list to avoid mirroring those files. > > The affected users shouldn't be afraid to say they want to abide by their > own countries' laws. I don't expect any to go so far as to say those laws > are good. :-) Cheers. > -- > Trevor Johnson > http://jpj.net/~trevor/gpgkey.txt > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chuck Robey | Interests include C & Java programming, FreeBSD, chuckr@picnic.mat.net | electronics, communications, and signal processing. New Year's Resolution: I will not sphroxify gullible people into looking up fictitious words in the dictionary. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message
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