From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from jazzswing.ncsc.mil (jazzswing.ncsc.mil [144.51.68.65]) by tycho.ncsc.mil (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id SAA17809 for ; Tue, 4 Jun 2002 18:17:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jazzswing.ncsc.mil (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by jazzswing.ncsc.mil with ESMTP id WAA29916 for ; Tue, 4 Jun 2002 22:17:45 GMT Received: from www.cabledns.net ([64.42.232.109]) by jazzswing.ncsc.mil with ESMTP id WAA29912 for ; Tue, 4 Jun 2002 22:17:44 GMT Message-ID: <000201c20c15$a9b56880$91c03b8e@OK> From: "Admissions Office" To: , "SE Linux" Cc: "Haigh, Tom" , "Carsten Grohmann" , "Russell Coker" References: Subject: Re: Sorry, read this one: Re: SELinux Dumb Questions Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2002 15:59:30 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Sender: owner-selinux@tycho.nsa.gov List-Id: selinux@tycho.nsa.gov 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 > -- You have received this message because you are subscribed to the selinux list. If you no longer wish to subscribe, send mail to majordomo@tycho.nsa.gov with the words "unsubscribe selinux" without quotes as the message.