Success of commercial sites does not come at the expense of the rest of the web. It's all still there, and if you want to use it, you can. Since it's not commercial, it doesn't depend on 20,000 people reading it each day to continue being. If you're talking about competition between comercial sites, well, oh well, that's business in the fast lane.
The GPL does not recognise trade embargoes. The GPL does not support information hoarding.
I feel we should be looking at this the other way around-- Not, "Can we distribute software in light of US regulations?" but, "Is the US government attempting to violate the license?" That is, are they trying to restrict access to GPL'd software. This regulation does seem to restrict access to GPL'd software, and so we simply cannot recognise it.
By the same token, people have suggested perhaps it would be better not to offer software to certain countries for political reasons. We do not have that option. Free Software is Free Software, and you can't restrict anyone's access to it, ever.
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Success of commercial sites does not come at the expense of the rest of the web. It's all still there, and if you want to use it, you can. Since it's not commercial, it doesn't depend on 20,000 people reading it each day to continue being. If you're talking about competition between comercial sites, well, oh well, that's business in the fast lane.
The GPL does not recognise trade embargoes. The GPL does not support information hoarding.
I feel we should be looking at this the other way around-- Not, "Can we distribute software in light of US regulations?" but, "Is the US government attempting to violate the license?" That is, are they trying to restrict access to GPL'd software. This regulation does seem to restrict access to GPL'd software, and so we simply cannot recognise it.
By the same token, people have suggested perhaps it would be better not to offer software to certain countries for political reasons. We do not have that option. Free Software is Free Software, and you can't restrict anyone's access to it, ever.