Why do I have to agree with USA law when installing Fedora or openSUSE ?

lemmyreader@lemmy.ml to Linux@lemmy.ml – 150 points –

Debian or Arch or Ubuntu never ask for my confirmation ?

Example :

You acknowledge that openSUSE Leap 15.3 is subject to the U.S. Export Administration Regulations (the “EAR”) and you agree to comply with the EAR. You will not export or re-export openSUSE Leap 15.3 directly or indirectly, to: (1) any countries that are subject to US export restrictions; (2) any end user who you know or have reason to know will utilize openSUSE Leap 15.3 in the design, development or production of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or rocket systems, space launch vehicles, and sounding rockets, or unmanned air vehicle systems, except as authorized by the relevant government agency by regulation or specific license; or (3) any end user who has been prohibited from participating in the US export transactions by any federal agency of the US government. By downloading or using openSUSE Leap 15.3, you are agreeing to the foregoing and you are representing and warranting that You are not located in,under the control of, or a national or resident of any such country or on any such list. In addition, you are responsible for complying with any local laws in Your jurisdiction which may impact Your right to import, export or use openSUSE Leap 15.3. Please consult the Bureau of Industry and Security web page www.bis.doc.gov before exporting items subject to the EAR. It is your responsibility to obtain any necessary export approvals.

61

Its a CYA for SUSE. Certain technologies aren't permitted to be shared outside of USA unless you go through the ETAR and assign if it commerically restricted/unrestricted, etc. If you are in USA you are bound by this anyway, even without a EULA.

They don't know what you may install or transfer, even though it is opensource and you could download in another country.

We get hung up with this at work. We may have a software issue and send to USA parent company for review, they then need to know if the data represents a certain class so they can direct where (country) the software review or fix can be sent for evaluation.

There are obious things like military, but then there are commercial, transit infrastructure, aero, etc.

But it can get stupid, like the parent company received a CAD file I sent in as a demomstration of a display bug. i made a cube 4x4x4. the agent wanted to know what ETAR class it was, I argued it isn't because it is a cube I made as demo only, they would not review till i choose a class from a long list. None applied. But I had to pick one for them to proceed. So somewhere some guy is doing data chain of custody on a cube. lol

In cases where it does fall into restricted commercial interest or other restrictions only a USA citizen can work on the data.

This agreement poses no restrictiona on you that aren't already present if you are in the USA. And you shouldn't need to worry, unless you actively are designing or stealing data to hand over to a USA "enemy" for purposes of espionage , war, weapons etc

Certain technologies aren't permitted to be shared outside of USA unless you go through the ETAR

I'm guessing you mean ITAR, if anyone's having trouble searching for it.

Its a CYA for SUSE. Certain technologies aren’t permitted to be shared outside of USA unless you go through the ETAR and assign if it commerically restricted/unrestricted, etc. If you are in USA you are bound by this anyway, even without a EULA.

Thanks. Yes, I noticed that openSUSE mentions it takes its sources from SLES Enterprise version (and Fedora is connected with RedHat RHLE Enterprise USA) so I guess that's where the corporate lawyers started chiming in :)

Yeah, exactly. with OpenSUSE having SUSE binaries I'm sure they legal mumbo jumbo just tranafers for covering all scenarios

This has to do with encryption protocols. Offhand my assumption is either they are trying to be extra cautious as the rules are incredibly complex, or they have a different algorithm included by default that would be subject to those rules.

It is my limited understanding that encryption beyond a certain level is illegal to export from the US. For example one of the positives of OpenBSD being based in Canada was is the ability to include crypto at a level that that the US wouldn’t permit to export.

From https://www.openbsd.org/crypto.html

Edit: tense

It hasn't been illegal for a while now. Encryption is protected under free speech. (The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in our favor)

OpenBSD being based in Canada

Huh, TIL... That's cool!

9 more...

Cryptography is protected under the first amendment

A while back the NSA tried to argue it was a weapon and subject to weapons export restrictions but that was shot down in court

Out of curiosity, would they be subject to these laws/protocols/regulations if they are (developers or organization) based in the US, but offer releases hosted elsewhere in the world AND/OR develop the product with code hosted elsewhere in the world?

It's one of those bureacratic things. You could download OpenSUSE in a restricted country and install it, but if you were in the USA and transfered the data to a restricted country you would be in violation of ETAR restrictions, even without the EULA

9 more...

I guess it’s because US laws likes to pretend to be in force world wide … which they are not.

They ARE in force for exports...including software.

No, they are not. Sovereign countries are bound by the WTO (World Trade Organisation), not US export laws.

"Among other restrictions, US federal law controls the export of strong cryptographic materials, which are classified as a munition. Under these restrictions, the Fedora Project cannot export or provide Fedora software to any forbidden entity, including through the FreeMedia program"

You should let Fedora know that.

To avoid being sanctioned themselves

It’s helpful to follow if you want to deal with the US government

Because their lawyers said so. Canonical is based in England so their lawyers didn't say so. I don't know where the Debian project is based. OpenSUSE is based in Germany so I'm not sure why they feel the need, but I assume that's what the lawyers said they need to do.

I don’t know where the Debian project is based.

Trademark and at least some copyright for the project is owned by an entity in the New York and Ian Murdoch who started the project was US citizen. But calling the whole project as USA based is wrong, it is based 'on the internet' as even the core team is spread across the globe.

Maybe because Suse company wants to make business in USA.

4 more...

oh yeah, I'm sure that'll work 👍
about as effective as a mystical incantation

I kind of feel coerced by that text into sending a copy of OpenSUSE Leap to some obscure nuclear missile programme now, just for the sake of it

Why don't you use a distro that doesn't have such terms?

They all technically are subject to the same terms, they just don't bug you about it the way suse does

So if I help someone in Sudan, Syria or Iran to install Debian GNU/Linux I can be arrested by means of USA law, right ?

Possibly, though extremely unlikely. They wouldn't care unless you were doing it to help set up a nuclear weapons program or something.

This also assumes you're American, or working from the US. If you're French and working from France, for example, you'd be subject to French law, not American law.

1 more...

They can do that, but that's not the topic of the post.

It seems it's often unclear whether it does. A user under this post has linked Debian's wiki page that writes about this, and they don't have a definitive answer either, just pointers on how to make sure that you are safe

1 more...

Code should be protected under the first amendment

Sure, but again. That is only legally binding in US jurisdiction?

Only binding in the USA. Thoroughly ignored outside of it.

Source code is — Bernstein v. United States Department of Justice

Thanks for mentioning this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernstein_v._United_States

The government modified the regulations again, substantially loosening them, and Bernstein, now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, challenged them again. This time, he chose to represent himself, although he had no formal legal training. On October 15, 2003, almost nine years after Bernstein first brought the case, the judge dismissed it and asked Bernstein to come back when the government made a "concrete threat".

5 more...

I thought OpenSUSE is German, so why would you export it?

The only rationale is that it ships with cryptography that's made in 'murica and probably stored in US servers, hence the export warning.

openSUSE has German origins, but was bought in the past by Novell in USA, then went into other USA hands, and then it was sold to a Swedish company's German sub division, and located in Luxembourg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUSE_S.A.

And then they continued by not implementing the certified format correctly in Office anyway.

Enter the hefty fines. Like 5% of last year's revenue.