Todd Zullinger wrote:
Patrick O'Callaghan wrote:
Fair point. However the precise nature of the difference between
Fedora and Ubuntu in legal terms is not entirely clear to me. On
both systems the user can install propietary codecs, and on both
systems there are clear warnings that this is "at your own risk" and
the proprietary stuff is not installed by default. The practical
difference from the user's point of view is that Ubuntu tells you
how to get it and Fedora doesn't (the fact that Ubuntu actually
hosts some of it is to my mind a red herring; they could just as
easily provide pointers to 3rd-party sites if they were worried
about keeping legal distance, so apparently they aren't worried
about it).
It is not so simple. Even if you don't host the infringing code, you
can run into problems pointing people to it. See below.
It may also be relevant that Red Hat is a US company, and Canonical
isn't, and that US law allows software patents, and many other
countries don't (yet), but IANAL of course.
Yes, that is quite relevant. The problem with Fedora telling users
how to install things that violate US law is that it is considered
"contributory infringement" (google that ;).
Now if the Fedora had major third party repositories in yum to be used
for "other applications" that wouldn't be illegal. But giving exact
instructions would be.
This is related to sites pointing to DeCSS if I am correct.
How about links to other web sites that provide information on Fedora
and using it? Would that be illegal?
--
Robin Laing
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