What FOSS software is trade restrcted? Isn't that kind of against The four essential freedoms (gnu)?

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See What is Free Software? - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation
A program is free software if the program’s users have the four essential freedoms: [1]

  • The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0).
  • The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
  • The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others (freedom 2).
  • The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
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Freedom to use does depend upon the laws and regulations at the source (USA) as well as at the users location. We all must comply with the legal restrictions within our own countries.

The freedoms granted by the GNU licensing and the other free software licenses do not supercede federal laws and regulations for export.

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It is more of a moral ethical side of the software, IMPO.

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I am not sure I understand the direction of the question. Even if trade restrictions do violate the tenets of free software, that doesn’t change the fact that a legal entity in a country needs to follow that countries laws.

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