Penguin Liberation Front
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The Penguin Liberation Front (PLF) is a project to provide packages of so-called "endangered software" - free software which may not be legally distributable in some countries - for Linux users and developers. This software cannot be included in Linux distributions for various reasons, such as:
- Software patents, prohibiting the use of abstract algorithms regardless of implementation
- Other intellectual property laws, such as DMCA in the United States, and EUCD in the European Union
- Security laws, such as strong cryptography prohibition in many countries
Much free software is affected by these issues, and is therefore illegal in some parts of the world. This makes use of these packages difficult even for those in countries where no such laws are broken, since these packages are generally not carried in standard package repositories.
The PLF focused on Mandriva Linux and used urpmi for distribution. An effort to provide packages for Ubuntu was started, but later shut down due to lack of time to maintain it. A free packages repository for Ubuntu similar to PLF is instead maintained by the Medibuntu project.
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