Re: RIP hardened-sources

Andrew Savchenko <[email protected]> Sun, 30 Apr 2017 15:32:04 +0300
Newsgroups	gmane.linux.gentoo.hardened
Message-ID	<[email protected]>
On Sun, 30 Apr 2017 13:55:16 +0200 SK wrote:
> And it's not about money from what I've read, should read this if you
> want some more information :
> https://hardenedlinux.github.io/announcement/2017/04/29/hardenedlinux-statement2.html

Sounds like a very lame excuse...

> Closing the public access doesn’t make PaX/Grsecurity a
> non-free/libre software. Those who purchase subscriptions can
> access the source code. We don’t see GPL violated in any way here.

The devil is in the detail. If subscribers will not be restricted
in all four freedoms including distribution, than this is
unfortunate, but legal action. But if subscribers will be limited
in distribution of the source code, e.g. by a threat of cancelling
their subscription, this will be illegal, this will be GPLv2
violation and PaXTeam will turn into bunch of criminals.

> After all, it’s PaX team/Spender’s creation and they can do
> anything they want.

No, they can't, because it is not their exclusive creation: many
people have contributed to PaX/GrSec over past years and they also
have rights for parts of these code. Moreover PaXTeam is using Linux
kernel code (without it the whole project is meaningless) and they
must respect copyright right and authorship of everyone who
contibuted to the Linux kernel. If GPLv2 is respected, all is OK.
But PaXTeams plays on the very edge of GPLv2 violation right now
(without the exact terms of the subscription it is not possible to
say if GPLv2 is violated or not).

Frankly, I'm more and more convinced that the real reason behind
all this charade is that GrSec/PaX is indeed a very powerful
security technology. So powerful that in became a serious hindrance
for nsa (or any other shitty agency) and PaXTeam was nailed down to
provide further updates only to "proper" customers and cut off wide
FOSS community from this powerful technology. Of course they likely
have some secret court orders denying them to disclosure the real
reason, so we all are watching this charade.

P.S. Please do not top-post.

Best regards,
Andrew Savchenko
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