Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
Quoting Ron Johnson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): very strict regarding anything regarding Nazism. s/Nazism/Crimes against Mankind (or whatever it should be properly called in English...original version is apologie de crimes contre l'humanité)
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
The discussion about common carriers is all very interesting, but irrelevant. There are many protections in American law, and common carrier status is only one. We are certainly not responsible for things which are not obscene, and the package in question is not obscene (b/c under US law a cartoon such as that cannot be legally obscene). thomas
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
On 8 Dec 2004, at 8:53 am, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: The discussion about common carriers is all very interesting, but irrelevant. There are many protections in American law, and common carrier status is only one. We are certainly not responsible for things which are not obscene, and the package in question is not obscene (b/c under US law a cartoon such as that cannot be legally obscene). I could be wrong, but Debian is occasionally used and distributed by people outside the USA. Making any argument in this thread with reference solely to US law is irrelevant to the problems at hand. To be honest I really don't see what the problem is here. Content which is illegal to distribute in pretty much any significant market should be kept off the first CD, and probably shouldn't be in main. That way, users and distributors in any country can distribute and/or use the basic Debian distribution without any worries. They can distribute or use other parts of the archive, including packages such as the Bible or Hot-babe, at their own discretion. I have no problems with people packaging these things, they just shouldn't be part of the base install, or present on the media required to perform a base install. Tim -- Dr Tim Cutts GPG: 1024/D FC81E159 5BA6 8CD4 2C57 9824 6638 C066 16E2 F4F5 FC81 E159 PGP.sig Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 13:12:35 -0800, Bruce Perens [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: Manoj Srivastava wrote: Oh, and if we do not specify what the nature of what we package, would it be easier to prove we merely carry packages? That would really be nice. I just do not see that we have the slightest chance of convincing a court that we're a common carrier. Fair enough. I did not really think we had a hope there. However, I still find myself unconvinced that policy about how content is packaged (mostly how maintainer scripts and packaging rules interact with the packaging system) and how the contents are laid out in the file system is policy about the _nature_ of content. manoj -- There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it. G.B. Shaw Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
Tim Cutts [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I could be wrong, but Debian is occasionally used and distributed by people outside the USA. Making any argument in this thread with reference solely to US law is irrelevant to the problems at hand. I was answering a claim about US law; I was not the one who introduced it. Yet what you say next contradicts the above quote: To be honest I really don't see what the problem is here. Content which is illegal to distribute in pretty much any significant market should be kept off the first CD, and probably shouldn't be in main. So that means that reference to US law certainly is relevant, since the United States is a significant market. Never mind, the principle you suggest is not Debian's current rule, and if you want it to be adopted, you should follow the normal way, not just declare that it is somehow obviously the right rule. So how about you take the discussion to debian-project where it belongs, and prepare a suitable GR or other policy instrument to change our policies, or lobby the release manager, or do one of those things? Thomas
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
On Tue, Dec 07, 2004 at 04:48:24PM -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: Goswin von Brederlow wrote: A mirror operator in general /does/ make choices about the content carried on the mirror. The closest analogy that would already have been litigated is a Cable TV system. The U.S. FCC decided that Cable TV networks were not common carriers /because the subscriber did not determine the programming./ This was appealed and the court agreed with FCC. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_TV Now, there might be a way make a mirror qualify. You would have to set it up so that the mirror would mirror /everything /that is sent its way without discrimination. The mirror operator could take money to do this, but would not be able to turn customers away. Then, you might have some chance of convincing a judge that the mirror provides a communications service in an entirely non-discriminatory fashion, which is what a common carrier does. I guess Akamai would be the closest example today to a mirror operating this way. Being a former Akamai employee, I can state (and refer you to the appropriate people inside Akamai) that Akamai does not and never has operated in this fashion. Exactly like a cable TV network, in fact, Akamai redistributes the content that customers -- content providers -- pay for. Akamai is fully able to turn customers away, and has done so for various reasons (e.g. the customer is a spammer). For an example of a non-discriminatory mirror, consider the many ISPs which provide general HTTP caching services through Squid. Whether as a transparent or voluntary proxy, the goal of these caches is to improve content availability and transfer speed, while reducing bandwidth costs. -dsr- -- Nothing to sig here, move along.
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Akamai is fully able to turn customers away, and has done so for various reasons (e.g. the customer is a spammer). That's the key. And we had a posting from Joe Alewin that was most informative on this topic. For an example of a non-discriminatory mirror, consider the many ISPs which provide general HTTP caching services through Squid. Whether as a transparent or voluntary proxy, the goal of these caches is to improve content availability and transfer speed, while reducing bandwidth costs. That's the best example we have, I think. Thanks Bruce
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
On Wed, 2004-12-08 at 10:31 -0800, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote: Tim Cutts [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: [snip] To be honest I really don't see what the problem is here. Content which is illegal to distribute in pretty much any significant market should be kept off the first CD, and probably shouldn't be in main. So that means that reference to US law certainly is relevant, since the United States is a significant market. Never mind, the principle you suggest is not Debian's current rule, and if you want it to be adopted, you should follow the normal way, not just declare that it is somehow obviously the right rule. So how about you take the discussion to debian-project where it belongs, and prepare a suitable GR or other policy instrument to change our policies, or lobby the release manager, or do one of those things? Debian isn't Soviet Russia or the PRC or pre-war Afghanistan. Calmly discussing peoples' should beliefs is a worthy task. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. [QUOTE] Casey asked Johnson if doctors tell a woman that the abortion procedure they might use includes sucking the brain out of the skull. I don't think we would use those terms, Johnson said. I think we would probably use a term like 'decompression of the skull' or 'reducing the contents of the skull.' The judge responded, Make it nice and palatable so that they wouldn't understand what it's all about? Johnson, though, said doctors merely want to be sensitive. [/QUOTE] http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storycid=519ncid=519e=7; u=/ap/20040401/ap_on_re_us/abortion_lawsuits_31 signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 11:41:42 -0800, Bruce Perens [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: I don't think we have the slightest chance of proving to any court that Debian is a common carrier, given the several inches of policy manual that specify the nature of the content, etc. Say what? Where is this policy that specifies on the nature of content? I see a technical policy that specifies on how something is packaged, but nothing at all that states what the content may be. The closes I can see is stating what licese something is released under. Oh, and if we do not specify what the nature of what we package, would it be easier to prove we merely carry packages? That would really be nice. manoj -- Walking on water wasn't built in a day. Jack Kerouac Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
Manoj Srivastava wrote: Oh, and if we do not specify what the nature of what we package, would it be easier to prove we merely carry packages? That would really be nice. A common carrier carries content from one external point to another as directed by the parties exchanging the content without any modification of that content. The fact that we assemble the content into an aggregate work is sufficient to say we are not a common carrier. That aggregate work is functional in a way that no individual package is, and putting it together constitutes an independent work of creation, carried out by the organization. The vast body of Debian policy is concerned with assembling that content into the aggregate work, it specifies many details about the content meant to make it operate when assembled together. In addition, there is bug and feature management carried out by the project, which is essentially a direction to the maintainer to edit the package, and packages are rejected from the whole when they have release-critical bugs. If you sit down and think about the Debian process, I have no doubt that you can come up with 10 more of these. I just do not see that we have the slightest chance of convincing a court that we're a common carrier. Thanks Bruce
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
Bruce Perens [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Manoj Srivastava wrote: Oh, and if we do not specify what the nature of what we package, would it be easier to prove we merely carry packages? That would really be nice. A common carrier carries content from one external point to another as directed by the parties exchanging the content without any modification of that content. The fact that we assemble the content into an aggregate work is sufficient to say we are not a common carrier. That aggregate work is functional in a way that no individual package is, and putting it together constitutes an independent work of creation, carried out by the organization. The vast body of Debian policy is concerned with assembling that content into the aggregate work, it specifies many details about the content meant to make it operate when assembled together. But that would not include any debian mirror, they would be common carrier? MfG Goswin
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
Goswin von Brederlow wrote: But that would not include any debian mirror, they would be common carrier? A mirror operator in general does make choices about the content carried on the mirror. The closest analogy that would already have been litigated is a Cable TV system. The U.S. FCC decided that Cable TV networks were not common carriers because the subscriber did not determine the programming. This was appealed and the court agreed with FCC. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_TV Now, there might be a way make a mirror qualify. You would have to set it up so that the mirror would mirror everything that is sent its way without discrimination. The mirror operator could take money to do this, but would not be able to turn customers away. Then, you might have some chance of convincing a judge that the mirror provides a communications service in an entirely non-discriminatory fashion, which is what a common carrier does. I guess Akamai would be the closest example today to a mirror operating this way. Thanks Bruce smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
On Tue, 2004-12-07 at 16:48 -0800, Bruce Perens wrote: Goswin von Brederlow wrote: But that would not include any debian mirror, they would be common carrier? A mirror operator in general does make choices about the content carried on the mirror. The closest analogy that would already have been litigated is a Cable TV system. The U.S. FCC decided that Cable TV networks were not common carriers because the subscriber did not determine the programming. This was appealed and the court agreed with FCC. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cable_TV Now, there might be a way make a mirror qualify. You would have to set it up so that the mirror would mirror everything that is sent its way without discrimination. The mirror operator could take money to do this, but would not be able to turn customers away. Then, you might have some chance of convincing a judge that the mirror provides a communications service in an entirely non-discriminatory fashion, which is what a common carrier does. I guess Akamai would be the closest example today to a mirror operating this way. But, of course, all this is US law. French law, for instance, is very strict regarding anything regarding Nazism. -- - Ron Johnson, Jr. Jefferson, LA USA PGP Key ID 8834C06B I prefer encrypted mail. After seeing all the viruses, trojan horses, worms and Reply mails from stupidly-configured anti-virus software that's been hurled upon the internet for the last 3 years, and the time/money that is spent protecting against said viruses, trojan horses worms, I can only conclude that Microsoft is dangerous to the internet and American commerce, and it's software should be banned. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: Is Debian a common carrier? Was: package rejection
On Tue, Dec 07, 2004 at 02:36:35PM -0600, Manoj Srivastava wrote: On Tue, 07 Dec 2004 11:41:42 -0800, Bruce Perens [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: I don't think we have the slightest chance of proving to any court that Debian is a common carrier, given the several inches of policy manual that specify the nature of the content, etc. Say what? Where is this policy that specifies on the nature of content? I see a technical policy that specifies on how something is packaged, but nothing at all that states what the content may be. The closes I can see is stating what licese something is released under. Oh, and if we do not specify what the nature of what we package, would it be easier to prove we merely carry packages? That would really be nice. manoj I work for one of the prime examples of a common carrier (and in fact, one of very few proven by case law): a former Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) / current Incumbent Local Exchange Carrier (ILEC) with a Long-Distance affiliate. FCC stamped, approved, and intended. Or, in short, (a) the Telephone Company. The rules around what constitutes a CC are *very* thorny, and it's very easy to screw up (and very painful to do so, as well, due to the liability issues). But the primary set of conditions are as follows: * You must carry traffic between points for third parties (with narrow exceptions for control traffic, any traffic you origionate or receive, you are liable for as a normal sender/receiver). * You may not choose to carry, or not carry, traffic on any basis except capacity to do so (note that your contract with a customer can limit capacity available to them). The key point here is that you not only can't make judgement calls on whether to carry or not carry something based on signal content, in general you can't even LOOK at the signal content. About the only exception to this is routing information related to the traffic (for the obvious reason that you have to know where to send it, and said content is thus implicity directed to you as the carrier). * In general, you are heavily restricted on what criteria you may apply when deciding who will be a customer in the first place; common is the important word here, with it's implication that you provide a service to the commons, and that denial of said service requires a reasonable justification (such as failure to pay, or an expectation of an inability to pay, for the service). None of this is legal advice in the slightest; if you want that, in regards to common carriers, you're going to be paying very specialized lawyers a very large amount of money. The fact that many ISPs have networks that can, in theory, operate as common carriers (if you do routing purely on traffic routing data, and utterly ignore both content, and consequences of delivering the content), does not mean they qualify (as has been pointed out, so far no case law has established them as such, and it appears to be running the other direction, for the most part). Most ISPs run enough filtering simply as a requirement to be able to move traffic at all that they are worlds away from CC status. In my estimation (based primarily on having worked for national, regional, and local ISPs, and a telco, including all of the big lengthy legal warnings and requirements about what one can do or not do when dealing with customers or their data), Debian isn't even playing the same *sport*, much less is it in the ballpark - and it doesn't want to be, either. You could argue that an archive which accepted uploads of DEB packages from anyone at all, with no review and only automated enforcement of certain base sanity checks such as Is it a well-formed DEB package - *not* does it meet the following policies - could qualify as a CC, but frankly, the term was never meant to be applied to such a beast, and I strongly suspect the US Court system would take note of that when deciding. And it would be a damned useless archive anyway, so. -- Joel Aelwyn [EMAIL PROTECTED] ,''`. : :' : `. `' `- signature.asc Description: Digital signature
