Subject: Re: Obscene content in cygwin file.
From: Joshua Kolden <[email-masked]>
To: Mark Thornton <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 14:44:57 -0800

>
> There is also the issue of legal risk. Is the material illegal in any 
> country (which would cause obvious difficulty for any user or 
> maintainer in such countries) and do any of these countries apply 
> their laws extra territorially (which might cause problems to anyone 
> visiting a country with an extradition agreement with the offended 
> country). If there is a legal risk, is the continued inclusion of the 
> material, which is rather peripheral to the main purpose of Cygwin, 
> justified?
>
> Mark Thornton
>
>
Interesting point, however it does appear to be rhetorical since no one 
has in fact brought this up as an issue for them.  My apologies if I 
missed a post were someone said this was their issue.  Nevertheless, for 
entertainment value and in the interest of completeness let's evaluate 
this issue as well.

First to clearly state the question.  It appears to me to be: Should a 
software author or packager take on the responsibility of no breaking 
the laws of other countries where the software may be distributed.

If among the goals of the packager he wishes to cause no harm to his 
users perhaps it is a good idea to remove the software.

Will removing  the software reduce the risk to the user?  Almost any 
content is widely available on the net, so our efforts to protect the 
user may be limited.  Further, are we sure that this is the only package 
that is not legal in a given country.  If their are others then we would 
need to remove them as well to insure that we've successfully removed 
the additional risk our software puts on it's users. 

It seems on the face of it that insuring the legality of the software in 
every legal system is a responsibility poorly placed on the packager.  A 
far better judge of the legality of a given software package is the 
user.  That user only has to evaluate his own laws wear as the packager 
must evaluate every countries laws.

If the user is to take responsibility then we must provide as much 
information as possible for every package so that the user can apply his 
own judgment.  This handily addresses the other issue of personal 
objection to the content as well.

j

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