On Thu, 6 Jun 2002, Crispin Cowan wrote: > jmjonesat_private wrote: > > >Because of the > >law, the Patent Owners *MUST* assert their rights if they ever expect to > >have any recourse, and I think this may be a "dot i's and cross t's" > >issue. It might not be a real issue if NSA is working with them toward an > >understanding. > > > This is misinformation. What JMJones says applies to TRADEMARK, not > patents. Patent holder's rights endure, regardless of prior actions. See > the UNISYS/GIF patent fiasco. Worser than I'd thought... I apologize for my misunderstanding, if that's what it was. While rights may persist, it's the obligation (in my understanding) of the patent-holder to pursue recourse, is it not? While it may be unnecessary for them to "claim in advance", it still is their right to jump users and/or producers after-the-fact if they're property rights. I simply seek to have an "authoritive" response from Secure Computing and/or SELinux, with regard to distribution of the source code for SELinux via the LSM mechanism and distribution. If there's no-issue, I would like to hear it, rather than listen to "long-stretched-silence" and think my product is "future-challengable." Apparently, SELinux can apply a mechanism that doesn't infringe... I'm not well-versed enough to declare that it has not. I still see no reason why this issue refers to the LSM interface. > Since there is currently no dispute, don't hold your breath waiting for > a court decision. Well, no: there's no dispute in the courts of which I know. And I do not seek to create a basis for one, but I think *I* and others are concerned about this: we'd like to distribute (for commercial use) the stock kernel and provide SELinux as ONE OF MANY solutions. If we're legally endangered by the licensing of SELinux, we'll have to remove it and only include other solutions. There's just one thing we'd like, out here in "listener land", which is a joint statement by the NSA and Secure Computing that SELinux is not subject to further licensing requirements if we should include it in our products if they are used by commercial concerns. My current understanding is that SELinux is validly GPL'd, so we may distribute this as an optional module/compiled solution, and modify it under that license. This (minor) glitch is somewhat worrisome, so we're just "on hold." Would SELinux's legal department (or anybody else's, ESPECIALLY the owners of TE?) be willing to assuage our concerns, with regard to this issue? > > The statements from SCC regarding the TE patent are a little bit mumbly, > but seem to say that you can use it freely. SELinux users would probably > be more comfortable with an explicit declaration that SCC is releasing > the patent under the GPL. I've read these, and, yeah, they're mumbly. It DOES appear to ME that SELinux can be distributed under GPL without issue. Did they intend to release this technology to the Open Software market, or just to "mumble" until it was commercially viable and then pursue licenses. > > The most serious issue is the DTE patent, and its implications for the > open source DTE LSM module. I am not aware of any statements from NAI > regarding the availability of the DTE patent. I know little of this, but TE may be the "first test." IMHO. Regardless, the LSM interface ALLOWS SELinux, as well as numerous other modules. If it's JUST an SELinux problem (the patent), then I think we'd all be happy to distribute other solutions and provide a link to distribution of SELinux for those willing to license it appropriately. > > 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 > > Does SELinux/NSA have any current word on this? J. Melvin Jones *------------------------------------------------------- * J. Melvin Jones http://www.jmjones.com/ * Webmaster, System Administrator, Network Administrator * ------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ linux-security-module mailing list linux-security-moduleat_private http://mail.wirex.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-security-module
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