On Tue, 2005-11-29 at 18:17 -0500, ryan wrote:
Its very debatable. What is "illegal redistribution" in one country is not in another.
Please name a country?
Of course, I'm sure MS doesn't like it when third world countries engage in rampant copying/distribution of Windows and Office - but I bet most of those countries have no laws on their books that make software "piracy" illegal.
Bull! They _do_. They just don't enforce them! Lack of enforcement does _not_ mean "legal." Just because the piracy rate in Japan is 92% and places like Singapore is 99% (oh the irony of their "values" ;-) does _not_ mean it's "legal" to illegally copy works.
They just don't enforce it. _Huge_ difference!
What is illegal in Redmond, USA is not necessarily illegal in the rest of the world and vice versa.
But countries that have signed certain international treaties and laws on copyrights with the United States _are_ bound by them. Even China is bound by man agreements they have signed, and their lack of enforcement is a powerful bargaining tool right now with their membership (or potential membership) in various organizations.
Again, we are _way_off_ the path of my _original_ point. You guys can really argue to the point of absolute futility on these matters, but CentOS and its repositories -- like Fedora Core/Extras, official Debian repositories, etc... -- are designed so they are 100% redistributable (and are not necessarily 100% open source, read all the licenses ;-).
That way there are _no_ legal issues with redistribution into another project, for consultants and integrators, etc... If you really "don't care" and just freely redistribute Gentoo, Ubuntu, Knoppix (non-official releases with 100% pure Debian), etc... then please do _not_ step foot in any corporation I consult for or work at. ;->