[clug] What can't be distributed with Linux?

[Daniel Black]

On Sunday 18 March 2007 22:19, Chris Smart wrote:
> Hey all,
> Having run into this sort of thing myself in the past, I'm wondering if
> anyone has some resources on what can and can't be distributed with
> Linux?
>
> For example, AFAIK libdvdcss is illegal in countries where it is against
> the law to circumvent copy protection measures.
>
> What about things like win32codecs? I know most distros don't include
> them by default, but I'm not sure whether they are distributable. If
> they aren't, then how can they be downloaded from mplayer off the net?
>
> Then back in the kernel with things like, Intel's ipw3945 driver - it is
> under GPL and BSD license, so I assume this is incompatible with the
> kernel and the GPL. Similarly, the atheros chipset madwifi-ng driver,
> and so the list goes on.
>
> Any resources for finding out this sort of thing?
>

On gentoo you can look for RESTRICT=mirror/nomirror (actually the same - the 
convention just changed). Its very US focused in the way that it views law 
though.

Some are incorrectly marked though so ignore the once originating from 
sourceforge mirrors and the like.

 grep -r  "RESTRICT.*mirror" /usr/portage/ --include \*.ebuild

For those that don't use Gentoo - grab a tarball here 
http://mirror.linux.org.au/pub/gentoo/snapshots/.

> Thanks!
> Chris

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Daniel Black
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