Re: Sorry, read this one: Re: SELinux Dumb Questions

["Admissions Office" <admissions@internet.edu.nf>]

Ok, Tom & I are going to be speaking soon.  So we will talk, thats just
great business. And we will all see how this plays out.....





> Sorry about that last empty message, I accidently hit ^[ENTER] when I
meant
> hit shift...
> -------------------
>
> Something is really amiss with this and needs to be brought to a
reasonable
> conclusion soon. Read on for details...
>
> On Monday, 03 June Admissions Office wrote:
> > > Folks this may seem like a dumb question given the Open Source and
> > > postings on the site. Its just that we want to be sure....
> > >
> > > Is there any reason why a Colo company cannot offer SELinux as a
standard
> > > product offering they would install on clients servers?
>
> And on Monday 03 June Russell Coker replied:
> > As Mark stated there are no license or legal issues preventing such use.
>
> BUT;
> On Monday 03 June Tom Haigh wrote:
>
> > SELinux includes Type Enforcement technology developed and patented by
the
> > Secure Computing Corporation, who still holds rights to all commercial
use
> > of the technology.  Before a colo company, or anyone else uses the
> > technology commercially, it will be necessary to negotiate a license
with
> > Secure Computing.  If anyone wants to do so, I can help get the ball
> > rolling with our Legal and BD folks.
> >
> > --Tom
> >
> > Dr. Tom Haigh, CTO
> > Secure Computing Corp.
> > 2675 Long Lake Road
> > Roseville, MN 55113
> >
> > 651-628-2738 (V)
> > 651-628-2701 (F)
> >
> > haigh@securecomputing.com
>
>
> There is some severe misunderstanding here.
>
> IANAL, but it is my understanding that you cannot restrict the use or
> distribution of GPLd Free Software. It simply does not work that way, no
> exceptions, no excuses. Once code is GPLd it is free for all to use. You
can
> change the license on future versions of the code, but you cannot go back
and
> restrict GPL's code "after the fact"
>
> Either:
>
>  1. Someone (at the NSA?) affixed the GPL to code they didn't have a right
to
> do so on, or
>
> 2. (More likely) Secure Computing did not understand under what terms they
> were developing Type Enforcment for the NSA under.
>
> I've got the flu right now so I'm too tried to reason it all through, but
> _someone_ needs to very soon.
>
> Just a few implications that come to the top of my head if Secure
COmputing
> is right:
>
> 1. SELinux patches cannot legally be applied to GPLd software or the Linux
> kernel, because that would break the GPL itself (GPL forbids making
non-free
> changes to GPL'd code -- i.e., if you modify GPL'd code, the modifications
> must be made available under the terms of the GPL).
>
> 2. It will need to be removed from Debian's tree -- at least moved to
> non-free, yet as I said before, if Secure Computing is correct, SE-Linux
is
> not legal to use with GPL'd software anyway (at least the way I see it).
>
> You'd better bet that GNU and other people who's code is being modified to
> work with SE-Linux will have ten purple cows on anyone who mixes non-free
> code with their GPLd code.
>
> Perhaps I'm totally misunderstanding something while I'm half-delirious
with
> the flu, but this needs to be clarified _soon_.
>
> JW
>


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