Like it or not, Theo has a point... freebsd is shipping export-restricted software in the core

[Gonzalo Nemmi]

El 07/10/2010 02:18 a.m., Rob Farmer escribió:
> On Wed, Oct 6, 2010 at 20:38, Gonzalo Nemmi<gnemmi at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>> As a lawyer, no matter how much I review your set up, it´s a _fact_ that a
>> license place in a place like
>> /usr/src/sys/contrib/dev/acpica/hardware/hwsleep.c, that is to say, lost
>> amongs a gazillion files: _will_ scape any review.
>>
>> Furthermore, you can count on legal advise about the thing you tell you
>> lawyer to review, but if you ignore _what_ you want to get reviewed: you
>> can´t count on anyone knowing it for you.
>
> I would assume that such a review would involve extracting all the
> licenses in the source tree, eliminating the duplicates, and having
> those reviewed. I'm saying I don't find the "oh I missed that one"
> argument convincing, because if there is the possibility of missing a
> license, then you aren't looking closely enough in the first place.

I would assume you already did that before walking into my office to ask 
me about the set of licenses up for a review ... otherwise, there´s no 
way to me to look close enough where I wasn´t asked to look ...

If you go tell your Dr. you have a simple cof and a runy nose, he won´t 
ask you to go trhough a colonoscopy or a brain tomography ... and, 
_please_, _by_all_means_ don´t count on him finding anything on your 
colon or in your brain in that case.


> This license is not just in
> src/sys/contrib/dev/acpica/hardware/hwsleep.c - it is in all the files
> within the acpica contrib directory, plus the upstream vendor states
> that it applies to the entire tarball on their website. You should
> reasonably expect that each piece of software (ie directory) within
> contrib may be under a different license and needs to be reviewed.

It´s not about what a lawyer or an accountant expects or doesn´t.

It´s about what _you_, who know your way around your business (only you 
know your code, the licenses it contains and where) a lot better than he 
(who actually only knows "his way around his business"), ask him to 
review. If you didn´t: don´t count on him jumping at you answering a 
question that was never asked in the first place, regardless of whether 
the license is on every acpica file or any file on the scheduler or on 
the bluetooth, usb or tcp/ip stack or anywhere else ...

>>> Making the license more visible may be a good idea, but doesn't
>>> materially change the situation any.
>>
>> It does by making it visible and thus telling potential
>> exporters/re-exporters "watch out for this one. Ask your lawyer about it´s
>> terms and conditions".
>
> What I meant by "doesn't materially change the situation any" is that
> everything exported from the US should be considered under export
> restrictions unless proven otherwise. Jung-uk Kim says:
>
> Historically FreeBSD never touched the license header.  However, I am
> going to do it next time to avoid confusions.
> ( http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions/2010-October/222451.html
> )
>
> I don't think this makes a bit of difference (it fact it would be
> somewhat misleading) since the export restrictions are a valid law and
> dropping clauses from the license doesn't change that - are you saying
> I'm wrong here?

Im saying what I already said.

Best Regards
Gonzalo Nemmi