Why do I have to agree with USA law when installing Fedora or openSUSE ?
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.
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.
Wouldn’t at the time. A lot of the restrictions on encryption algorithms themselves were loosened in the 90s after successful court cases ruling that source code was free speech.
SuSE and RH have their own legal teams who have combed through all of this and have decided not to chance it. Personally, I wouldn’t base a significant part of the foundation of any product on something as fickle as a Supreme Court ruling, especially when the product is something major from a group like SuSE or RH.
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".
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