Hello Charles, Charles-h.schulz wrote:
> I understand your frustration but you also have to know that > it makes people nervous to deal with NK. I understand your meaning, but perhaps this should be said only in regard to the political system in NK, not the people of NK. HAving nothing to do with politics, I can not see a reason why one should be nervous to deal with people from NK in general (unless there is something personal). I guess that was the meaning of your statement. > I knew about this NK developper a while ago but I was willing > to shut up because disclosing his existence could have risen > up issues inside community. Now it's the case and we have to > come up with the most acceptable solution no matter how hard > it is. I'm afraid I can not fully agree with you here. Shutting and hiding the issues is not the way I think OOo community should act. We have had enough closed code and hidden commercial mitivations in other commercial products and we should try to make OpenOffice.org and its motivations completely transparent. Nevertheless, the people of North Korea have the right to know why and on which legal basis the NK support was refused. > First, OOo is not bound by US law. In fact, one wonders what > law is applicable to us since we have no legal existence as a > united body (sigh, sigh). This is an interesting subject. Sun is the owner of the code it bough from StarDevision, but since Open Source Diva's efforts, it became open-source and everyone who contributed is the joint owner of the code he/she submitted :-) Should be interesting to have an explanation about this by someone who understands this field. > they're based in the US. It is also true that you as a SK > citizen cannot really communicate with NK. Perhaps Jeongkyu can explain us the current situation in NK and SK. Being from SK, he should not have any problems explaining the current conditions and sanctions between them. Also, it would be very interesting to hear from Jeongkyu whether he knows anything about the IT development in NK. If they are not allowed to use commercial and opensource applications, how do they handle the IT infrastructure? What software do they use for iformation exchange, word processing, electronic mail, web etc. What are the encodings used for NK language? > Second, I believe that one of the traditions of free and open > source software is usually not to take any part in politics; I agree. > if you prohibit somebody to use, modify, or > distribute for some reason, (say a pornographic software), > then someday what a group of people judge pornographic may not > match your definition. This is true in regard with export, but when a local legislature forbids the distribution or use of a certain type of product, it clearly states the definition of such type of product and all the people as well as companies bound to this counties legislature are to abide such restrictions, as well as the definition provided by the law. Other example can be found for nuclear > weapons: if we provide software to the US, Russian, French, UK > governments, does it mean we support nuclear weapons? In a certain way, yes. If we make a software that helps people use strong encryption to scamble information and such tools are used to organize terrorist activities (and there were reports that 9/11 attacks might have been organized using PGP encryption tool), than we have somehow and indirecty supported such activites. But this surely does not mean that we intended such results and we designed the software to be ill-used. In short, if we make a software or a product which is widely accessible by public and such product is to be usefull for comunity (and the product is not basedon a secret military knowledge), than we should not worry about its being ill-used (as everything in this world can be) and we can do nothing about it. The history has shown that keeping things secret for a long time does not bring progress. Freedom of Speech has been one of the key factors of development of a democratic countries. I agree with you that the questions are boyond the score of this mailing list. > In this context, Jeongkyu, understand that I don't mean to > offend you or IlYong. I just wonder (as some do here) ) what > are his reasons to contribute to OOo. Maybe he's a very nice > guy. Maybe he's being paid by the NK government to implement > OOo. Maybe he's part of the NK army. Who knows? Even though I understand you opinion again, I would be offended if I were IIYoung to read this. First, it is clearly not our affair to investigate the background and political beliefs of contributors, other than the intention to bring and adopt OOo to the new community. Of course, I will understand such requests if you have a reason to suspect that someones activity endangers the OOo product or its community. Second, looking back at the history, we must understand that the vast majority of people have had very little influence over the political developments in the countries, and the local inhabitants have suffered most by dictatorial or wrong (if I may ecpress it so) systems. No need to mention that German people should not be considered Nazis because Germany was occupied with such a group once, Russians should not be considered communists, and the same implies to every nation and system. The people in general are very nice and if the governmential system in their country does not provide them with enough freedoms and does not suit their culture and traditions, we should try to support the people, not isolate them (again, I am not talking about politics, but on the people not involved in politics). Sorry for the long explanation. > difficult, you can't really ask him this question, and the > NK-SK problem is a tragedy; one of its consequences is the > separation of one nation, dividing people and families for a > very long time. I can not agree more. This is indeed the worst part of the issue :-( > This is indeed a difficult topic. But as you can see it's a > topic that raises more questions than the most likely solution > to it would answer. Let us hope so. At least, we should once and for ever understand the legal status and territory of OOo as well as other OpenSource projects. > I have come to think to another very frustrating solution but > it would be still a bit better than the first one (separate > hosting): name one of the KO native-lang project > contributor/developper as the one who will upload the patches > of IlYong. It will solve all the problems since it will be > submitted by a SK citizen that could, in theory use the NL > locale for his own pleasure and family use (like if he was > nostalgic of living in Pyongyang). Well, I still believe that publising a product on a website and adding a language support to it has anything to do with exporting the product to an ambargoed country. Of course, Sun will not be able to export and sell SO copies to such countries, but that's entirely different thing. Your suggestions about having somone licing outside the US, but also not in NK to submit the patches seems interesting, but hopefully this will not be neccessary. Charles, I am sorry again for my long writing. I generally agree with your opinions, as well as Eike's and others (not to mention that Sun Legal's opinion to not make things complicated is also clearly understandable), I just wrote the explanations of the issue to the memebers who might not have the indepth knowledge of the style of the problem. I think the issue is rather important for other opensource projects too. I also think that some information abour IT, internet and software use in NK would be very helpful for us (though I totally understand that IIYoung may not be willing or able to provide us with such information). Best regards, Aiet Kolkhi > > charles-h.schulz wrote: > > > Hello Charles and others, > > > > I want to clearly state here that I do not blame Sun (or any > employees > > working for Sun). I have been working for one of US > companies, so I > > fully understand how critical such a legal issue is to them. > Also, I am > > not talking for NK localization team. I have not been > involved in it at > > all (As a citizen of Republic of Korea, it might be illegal > to be > > without permission from government). > > > > However, as one of volunteers, I want OpenOffice project to > make one > > thing clear - Is this project bound to U.S. law? It seems to > be due to > > practical reason, right? Then, let's state it in main > webpage or at > > least NL webpage so that there is no more confusion. Also, I > believe > > OpenOffice project should give an apology to IlYong. When he > started his > > working through L10n mailing list, nobody mentioned about it > and even > > his patches had been accepted. If my patch or contribution > was turned > > down not by technical reason but by political reason, it > might be enough > > to make me upset. > > > > By suggesting formal explanation from Sun (in my previous > mail), I > > wanted to figure out what is exact problem. The comment in > IZ only says > > that employee working for Sun is not allowed to assist in the > > development of North Korean version. Is that all? Did > everyone know > > OpenOffice.org source code is hosted by Sun? I knew that Sun > is major > > player but I did not know Collab is US based company so > North Korean can > > not have their NL project. Let's clarify those issues. > Again, this is my > > personal suggestion _as one of volunteers_. > > > > I thought OpenOffice.org is for everyone. I feel sorry that > it is not. > > > > Regards, > > Jeongkyu --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
