lEEt/OS, ST-DOS and all userland programs that come with the standard distribution disk are licensed in the GPLv3
license. The GPLv3 license exists to protect the freedoms and rights of the end user, including but not limited to
the freedom of speech and self-expression, the right to privacy, the right to modify the software and use it in any way the user wants,
etc.
Sadly, in some cases the local laws conflict with these ideals. Sometimes this may even lead to legal problems
for those people who use the software. Some of those known caveats are listed on this page. You can propose more content
to this page by using the forum or the IRC channel.
USA
In the state of California, starting from 1. January 2027 all operating systems that don't have age verification become
illegal. Using, distributing or owning copies or forks of these operating systems can lead to a $7500 fine per copy. A similar
law is also being proposed in Colorado. (27. February 2026)
ST-DOS does not verify the age of its user, nor does it even have any concept of user accounts by default.
Currently (15. Mar. 2026) the situation seems to be developing very rapidly, and there have been similar law proposals
about OS-level age verification in many US states. The Californian law proposal is written in such way that it defines
software "developer" as someone who is in control of an application, which in the case of free software means the user.
That would mean that only just using the software is also criminal. The New York version of the law bans all user-installable
operating systems.
EU
The CRA and Ecodesign directives make ST-DOS, lEEt/OS and all their standard userspace programs illegal as commercial
products. They may still be used for non-commercial purposes.
The CRA directive mandates that every operating system must have the concept of user accounts and background services.
It also mandates that the operating system must encrypt all user's files automatically without asking the user, which
naturally means that the user is not even in control of the encryption keys. Most probably the user wouldn't even know
that their files are being encrypted, such as is the case for Windows 11 users with Bitlocker enabled.
ST-DOS respects the freedoms and rights of its user. The user must have the choice about whether their files are being
encrypted or not, and the user must be in control of the encryption keys themselves.
Microsoft Windows stores the keys
in Microsoft's "cloud" servers, and if some legal authority wants those keys, they can get them from Microsoft; therefore
the encryption does not even help the user in keeping their data safe in any way. The most probable situation where the
user is affected by that type of encryption is when there is a problem with the TPM chip itself (for example a
motherboard failure) and the local copy of the keys is lost, in which case the user loses the access to their own files.
Naturally Bitlocker also does not protect against thieves who steal the computer physically, because the TPM chip always
contains a local copy of the encryption keys - the implementation just makes it very hard for the end-user themselves
to access those keys.
The Ecodesign directive mandates that all operating systems must have power saving features, which is not possible
on many hardware models without proprietary power saving drivers. Therefore it is technically impossible for ST-DOS to
comply with EU's Ecodesign directive. The Ecodesign directive also mandates certain UI features that are impossible
to implement on a command line based operating system.
Russia
Due to the sanctions against Russia, we cannot provide commercial support for ST-DOS, lEEt/OS and their related products for users in Russia. Unofficial non-commercial support is still available in the forum and IRC channel. We also accept contributions from all places.