[Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc

[Benoit Audouard]

Re,

2010/10/15 Frank Griffin <ftg at roadrunner.com>

> Tux99 wrote:
> > On Fri, 15 Oct 2010, Wolfgang Bornath wrote:
> >
> >
> >> As mirror maintainer/owner of Mandriva Linux and future Mageia
> >> (ftp.mandrivauser.de) I discussed this problem with my friends and we
> >> decided not to mirror PLF although a German university does
> >> (ftp.gwdg.de). The point is that our mirror is hosted on a private
> >> server where just one person is liable (me, unfortunately). But we
> > wobo, I perfectly understand your reasons
>
> IANAL, but as far as I know U.S. law exempts hosting sites from
> liability for things coming from the outside, provided they take the
> offending material down if the content owner requests it.
>
> Now, there are some differences between that situation and this one.
>

well, this issue cannot be thought only from a user point of view that can
assume which mirror he chooses to install from and assume the risk of using
the software.

As misc stated it, this is the responsibility of the association, who is
subject to international treaties in the end, first responsibilities being
taken by local mirror who will be taking counsel upstream. I've followed
debian-legal for more than 6 months in 2005/2006 and remembered one thing:
the only responsibility you take is choosing to *distribute* something that
can impact others with your _knowing_ that it will impact them ; we can't
take the responsibility for not knowing and we should manage
questions/requests/DMCA requests with a published and understood management
of the issue (some requests are out of topic or not relevant, it exists as
well).
Hence, it's the responsibility of upstream distribution to have a clear
policy (that means us), if possible. Some do not mind, some like debian or
RedHat take it the paranoid^Wcollaborative way (think  rpmfusion, marillat
repositories or plf if you understand the personnal implications).
ATM, it's important imho to document the state of the art, acting as a
responsible new distribution, seeking advice and opinions (some of us
alluded to fsf or fsfe, if Eben Moglen were to give us a go I will follow
him of course). Provision to address legal problems is a sane state of mind,
as long as it's realistic and balances pros and cons.
So, just for the moment, do not take reserves as "won't go" but as "not
ready to assume", please provide as much information to enhance the current
situation and build the better distribution for our users, based on factual
references.
I try to follow it up with a global context at
http://mageiacauldron.tuxfamily.org/Blog20101002MageiaLegalManagement and
specific difficulties regarding distribution at
http://mageiacauldron.tuxfamily.org/Blog20101013MageiaLegallyGreyPackages(feel
free to comment or update, as it's a wiki, remain factual and
documented though).

@++
Ben'. aka baud123


@++
Ben'. aka baud123
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