Re: SELinux to GPL or not to GPL

crispinat_private

Admissions Office wrote:

>Ok - so how did all the work get done under the GPL? Where do things go from here? I mean we have all these smart people and work is now in the area of what almost seems like - "darn lawyers."   Hmmmmm..
>
My undrstanding of the GPL vs. patents:

    * If (/big/ if) the patent owner chose to distribute a modification
      to a GPL'd program that embodied their patent, then the only right
      they had to distribute the modified program required them to share
      the patent under the GPL.
    * If some /other/ party employed a patented method in GPL'd code,
      then the patent holder still holds all of their rights. Whatever
      legal remedies the parties (& the court) agree to apply, but the
      friendly versioun would be "cease & decist distributing code using
      our patented method."

It is not exactly clear to me that TE was distributed as an enhancement 
to the Linux kernel by SCC, but it sure looks like it. SCC should 
confirm or deny this point. If what appears to have happened actually 
happened, then I suspect that the TE patent has been contributed to the 
community under the GPL, and thus SELinux should not have a problem.

It is also not clear to me what declarations, if any, TIS/NAI have ever 
made about the status of the DTE patent. The GPL'd implementation of DTE 
may be in trouble, depending on what TIS/NAI chooses to do.

Caveat: I am not a lawyer, nor am I party to any of these transactions. 
None of the above statements should be considered authoritative. To my 
knowledge, neither WireX nor LSM employ methods covered by the TE and 
DTE patents.

My thanks to all participants for not turning this into a flame-fest of 
what licenses /should/ be used. Lets keep it that way :)

Crispin

-- 
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX Communications, Inc. http://wirex.com
Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html

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