<nettime> Free Software's Freeness Guarenteed by US Army Invasion of Iraq*?!

[auskadi <auskadi@tvcabo.co.mz>]

In the light of the last post I made about Open Source and Denied 
Parties I thought this story and discussion on newsforge might be of 
some interest.
They guy who originated this storm seemed to think that the US Army's 
actions in Iraq somehow made the world (or more properly the US) a safer 
place for free software. Whats more it seems that the guy thought that 
if someone invaded the US they would crack down on his ability to write 
free software:
http://newsforge.com/newsforge/03/09/02/1930234.shtml?tid=51

In one way the guy may have apoint but not the one he articlulated ... 
it is arguable that has the US Army sucks various locales into the 
global system (aka Empire) they get to be strcuk off the list of 
countries that it is prohibited by US Law to export open source/free 
software to ... thus making those countries "free" to be able to 
download Mozilla without worrying about the legal implications arising...
See for example this discussion on the linuxiran list:
http://www.mail-archive.com/bna-linuxiran@nongnu.org/msg00223.html

It seems that these discussions and the US law and discussion thereof 
previously posted raise the spectre of an open source not quite  as free 
as we might have liked to believe or decieve ourselves ... constrained 
by law, geography and trade barriers as it appears ... but maybe the 
problem what is or who decides what is "free" be it free software, free 
speech or the free world.


-- 
Martin Hardie
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