How free is FreeBSD?
reddit / freebsd

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Peter_Far · 2020-09-18 18:01

Just a few questions in times of opposing trading blocks and trade
restrictions:

* Does FreeBSD fall under U.S. jurisdiction for U.S.
citizens/companies in- and outside the U.S.?
* Does FreeBSD fall under U.S. jurisdiction for non-U.S.
citizens/companies outside the U.S.?
* Are non-U.S. citizens/companies outside the U.S. free to do whatever
they want to do with FreeBSD?
* Is FreeBSD (or parts of it) at risk of any kind of U.S. export/trade
restriction now or in the future in- or outside the U.S.?
* Has any U.S. government/DOJ/DOC ever claimed "U.S. ownership" of
FreeBSD?

I was trying to find some hints in the case of current trade
restrictions for Huawei, but to no avail. Maybe someone else has
useful insights.

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jjasghar · 2020-09-18 18:12

I remember back in the day there was a popup that asked you not to
install freebsd if you had ?ssh? if you were in Iran because of trade
restrictions.

It's possible that it's still there, but i really don't remember.

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Ashli_unix · 2020-09-18 18:33

How to get vscode to work on it?

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nahnah2017 · 2020-09-18 18:44

[The FreeBSD Software
License](https://www.freebsd.org/internal/software-license.html)

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rogerairgood · 2020-09-18 19:05

https://www.freshports.org/editors/vscode

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JamesElstone · 2020-09-18 19:43

Have a read of the following:

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/crypto/README?view=markup

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/base/head/crypto/openssl/README?view=markup

More info will be at the OpenSSL project website.

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jaredj · 2020-09-18 19:43

I haven't got any conclusive answers, but there's at least one guy who
was [using FreeBSD in Iran](https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/faces-
of-freebsd-2019-mahdi-mokhtari/?_escaped_fragment_=) over the past few
years, a country to which I've seen exports of a lot of pieces of
software prohibited.

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Hamwich333 · 2020-09-18 20:36

When I tried FreeBSD, it was quite a lot of steps to get it working:

1. pkg install vscode

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vermaden · 2020-09-19 08:36

FreeBSD is more free then Linux (or anything GPL2/GPL3 licensed).

GPL\* licenses FORCE you to do several things that you may not want to
do (like sharing the modified source code) while BSD license gives you
more freedom because the only thing you need to do is to tell who
originally wrote it.

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mzs47 · 2020-09-19 09:15

If you want Libre/Free, I would recommend OpenBSD. Which has its
"foundation" in Canada.

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daemonpenguin · 2020-09-20 21:58

1. FreeBSD itself does not, but the FreeBSD Foundation, which controls
much of the FreeBSD code and trademarks, is a US non-profit.

2. Not sure what you mean by this. If you're not a US citizen or
company and are outside the US then it doesn't matter.

3. Yes, of course.

4. No, not unless you are a US citizen.

5. No.