Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262783AbVDHMI7 (ORCPT ); Fri, 8 Apr 2005 08:08:59 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262791AbVDHMI7 (ORCPT ); Fri, 8 Apr 2005 08:08:59 -0400 Received: from hades.almg.gov.br ([200.198.60.36]:58024 "EHLO hades.almg.gov.br") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262783AbVDHMIt (ORCPT ); Fri, 8 Apr 2005 08:08:49 -0400 Message-ID: <4256745B.2020409@almg.gov.br> Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2005 09:08:59 -0300 From: Humberto Massa User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0+ (Windows/20050224) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org, debian-kernel@lists.debian.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice. References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1481 Lines: 44 Adrian Bunk wrote: >Debian doesn't seem to care much about the possible legal problems of >patents. > > The possible legal problem of software patents is, up to the present time, AFAICT, not producing effects yet in Europe, and is a non-problem in jurisdictions like mine (down here neither business methods nor software are patentable). >The firmware issues are an urgent real problem? > > OTOH, the firmware issues *is* a legal real problem (copyright infringement is even a criminal offense in a lot of juristictions -- down here, 6 months to 2 years of soft jail + fine for non-commercial and 2 to 4 years of hard-jail + fine for commercial intents). >Debian should define how much legal risk they are willing to impose on >their mirrors and distributors and should act accordingly in all areas. > > You are right, but as I told you, the mirrors are really worse when there is a chance of copyrights infringement than of patents infringement -- even on those jurisdictions that *have* software patents, things are more difficult to prosecute in the patent field. >But ignoring some areas while being more religious than RMS in other >areas is simply silly. > > Conceded. You are right on this. HTH, Massa - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/