Hi! On Sat 2017-07-29 17:20:52, Paul G. Allen wrote: > > It's not even clear that there is infringement. The GPL merely > > requires that people who have been distributed copies of GPL'ed code > > must not be restricted from further redistribution of the code. It > > does not require that that someone who is distributing it must > > available on a public FTP/HTTP server. > > > > Brad Spengler has asserted that he has not forbidden any of his > > customers from further redistribution of the code. Other than his > > claim of being in compliance with the GPL, I do not personally have > > any information either suggesting that he is or is not violating the > > terms of the GNU Public License. > > > > Personally, I think I don't think it makes any difference one way or > > another. GRSecurity has made themselves irrelevant from the > > perspective of upstream development. If someone wants to find some > > embedded device which is using GRSecurity, and wishes to purchase said > > device, and then demand access to source code under the terms of the > > GPL, and then post those sources on some web site, that is all within > > their right to do. For the most part, though, it's rarely useful to > > get dead code posted on a web site. This is the same reason that > > people who do drive-by open sourcing of code largely don't make much > > difference. You can make a code drop of (for example) Digital's old > > Tru64 advfs and make it available under an open source license. But > > even though it was a very good file system for its time, unless it > > comes with a community of developers, the code drop will very likely > > just sit there. > > > > So personally, I don't think it's a particularly good use of *my* time > > to investigate whether or not folks who are responsible for grsecurity > > are violating the terms of the GPL, and to get involved in a lawsuit. > > It may be that there is no "there" there, in which case it will be a > > waste of my time. And even if we can find proof that GRsecurity has > > forbidden its customers from redistribution code derived from the > > Linux kernel, in violation of the GPL, it will be messy, it will > > enrich a bunch of attorneys --- and at the end of the day we will get > > a dump of code that probably won't make any real difference to the > > upstream development of the Linux kernel, since it will probably be > > based on some ancient 3.18 kernel or some such. > > > > If there is something to this (that GRSecurity is somehow in violation > of the GPL), then it would probably be a very good idea for someone > (the community, Red Hat, etc.) to protect the kernel. From my > understanding, at least in America, protections under any license or
You probably still have code in the kernel. So you probably can sue
them. I'll have my fingers crossed for you :-), but otherwise don't
expect much help.
Pavel
--
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http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
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