Update: After reading the full notice on Fedora download page, Mr. Stallman says that Fedora didn’t require users to promise anything therefor it’s not a violation of free software terms.

If you study it carefully, it does not require the downloader to promise not to do certain things. Rather, it requires the downloader to affirm awareness of these US rules, which may or may not apply.

Because of this, it does not contradict the GPL.

However, as our discussion shows, it is easy for people to misundestand and get the wrong idea about what it actually requires. They mey THINK it requires something that would violate the GPL even though it actually does not.

Richard Stallman

Original note:

Following my email message to Mr. Stallman, I had a lot of other discussions with different people but I think the best response was from Mr. Stallman himself.

He stated that the notice on Fedora download page makes it nonfree and the limitations are not compatible with GPL license.

Here’s Mr. Stallman’s email message:

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies, ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden’s example. ]]]

> I believe parts of this notice are violations of software freedom. The notice says that Fedora complies with “Unites States Export Administration Regulations (the =E2=80=9CEAR=E2=80=9D) and it’s prohibited for use in connection with the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or rocket systems, space launch vehicles, or sounding rockets, or unmanned air vehicle systems.”

As stated, that would make Fedora nonfree. However, Fedora cannot impose such requirements on GPL-covered programs unless Fedora has the copyright.

The GNU Project encryption programs were developed outside the US and I think users get them without passing through the FS.

> The other part says “You may not provide Fedora software or technical information to individuals or entities located in one of these countries or otherwise subject to these restrictions.”

Isn’t it a violation of freedom 2 (The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others)?

Yes, it would be — but I don’t think anyone can enforce it on you if you are outside the US and you download Fedora. That is why I did not make a fuss about it.

> So does that mean that I, a typical user of free software, am restricted from using and distributing a software that is licensed free? Do you and free software movement accept this discrimination?

The reason for section 8 is to prevent patents from being used to make a program effectively nonfree.

If in country C some company Q threatens to make the program priorietary by suing the users using Q’s patent, that would in effect make the program proprietary.

Using section 8, the developer can say, “You can’t make my program proprietary. With section 8 I make it not available at all in country C. Give my program liberty or give it death!.”

In other words, “I’d rather destroy my program than let you turn it into your proprietary product.”

Update: Mr. Stallman responded.

A while ago I wrote a blog post about moving from Fedora. After a lot of discussions with my friends, I finally decided to send an email message to Mr. Stallman about Fedora’s notice. I’m now waiting for Mr. Stallman’s response. Here’s my email message:

Dear Dr. Stallman,
Howdy.

Mr. Stallman, I’m a free software activist for more than 7 years now and I’ve using free software since I found out about the concept of software freedom. There’s not a single proprietary software in my computers. I even didn’t have a smart phone till a year ago. My phone currently runs LineageOS.

My operating system was Fedora untill I found out about a notice on Fedora GNU+Linux distro download page. https://getfedora.org/en/workstation/download/

I believe parts of this notice are violations of software freedom. The notice says that Fedora complies with “Unites States Export Administration Regulations (the “EAR”) and it’s prohibited for use in connection with the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or rocket systems, space launch vehicles, or sounding rockets, or unmanned air vehicle systems.”

Isn’t it violation of freedom 0 (The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose)?

The other part says “You may not provide Fedora software or technical information to individuals or entities located in one of these countries or otherwise subject to these restrictions.”

Isn’t it a violation of freedom 2 (The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others)?

The four freedoms doesn’t mention any country or specific software so I believe the terms of software freedom are applicable to all software no matter what country they’re based in.

A friend of mine told me that section 8 of GNU General Public License version 2 accept this discrimination.

“8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License. “

So does that mean that I, a typical user of free software, am restricted from using and distributing a software that is licensed free? Do you and free software movement accept this discrimination?

All my life, I fought for freedom. I’m an Iranian and I live in a country that basic human rights are violated and I fought for freedom and my people’s rights in the streets with my bare hands. If free software movement, FSF, and you sir, accept this discrimination, I no longer will fight for free software as it’s just a lie to me.

I know that companies and maybe projects based in U.S. should comply with USA’s laws but it’s not a good reason for discrimination like this. If free software can be restricted for some people or it can only be used by a group of people a country or a company chooses, then I believe free software movement is not what it says it is.

I remember you once said that free (as in freedom) software leads us to a free society. If this freedom is only for some people, then it’s just a lie, isn’t it?

Can you please explain to me and my friends how free software movement reacts to this?

Thanks a lot.

Alireza Hayati

I know a lot of hackers. I, myself, am a hacker but being a hacker doesn’t just mean infiltrating other people’s systems (those are crackers). If you do hacks, you’re a hacker.

For example, few years ago when I was backpacking I had trouble opening a glass of pickles. What I did was to use a spoon to lower the pressure between the lid and the glass and when the compressed air was released, I opened it.

That was a hack. A simple hack to open a glass. Hacking doesn’t just mean sabotaging or entering security holes.

But what I want to talk about is not hacking itself. I want to talk about the life of hackers, specifically computer hackers. A lot of computer hackers, for example programmers, dedicate their lives to and focus on computers.

They talk about operating systems, security, privacy, codes, hardware, etc. and only a few of them really pay attention to society. Few of them talk about politics, or nature. We see less and less hackers talking about plastic problems in world.

Of course there’s people who are interested in technologies that help mother nature but there’s not a lot of them. New hackers, mostly, think that being a computer guy means leaving every other subject in life; and that’s wrong.

The hacker community talks about everything. They value life, just like other people. Being hacker doesn’t mean that you should dedicate your life to computers. Politics, nature, people, global affairs, etc. all matter.

New hackers and the hackers community need to focus on life. We don’t live in computers, we live in a world full of people and everything affects us like others.

If world runs into a global crisis, like a pandemic, we all should do what we can. We’re not robots and computers, we’re humans so we should do what humans do.