Re: SELinux to GPL or not to GPL

From: Crispin Cowan (crispinat_private)
Date: Tue Jun 04 2002 - 21:15:19 PDT

  • Next message: Admissions Office: "Re: SELinux to GPL or not to GPL"

    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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