Re: GRSec is vital to Linux security

From: linuxgpletc
Date: Thu Jan 24 2019 - 11:54:04 EST


There is ample standing to sue. GRSec made it's "access agreement" public,
which included terms to prevent redistribution (if you redistribute, we
punish you). Which is a direct violation of the "no additional restrictive terms"
clause in the GPL.

Why won't anyone bring a copyright lawsuit?

Are they happy that GRSec gets to use their code, and prevent anyone from
freeing the derivative work? The whole point of the GPL is that derivative
works be under the same terms.

Bradly Spengler has violated this understanding, he thinks that his code
doesn't need to be under the same terms. The code which is simply a
derivative work of the linux kernel.

There is a valid, actionable case here.

Any of the programmers / copyright owners who's code he modified can sue him.
He is violating their terms of use of their software.
He is in the USA. It's not difficult. Just SUE.

Just because VMWare does things one doesn't like doesn't mean you cannot sue
Bradly Spengler.

Another thing is, the "Free software" legal "representation" is trash.
The SFConservancy was run for the longest time by a non-lawyer BKuhn.

He advised "clients" to WAIT it out! And then.. guess what they have waiting years?
No case because the statute of limitations had been passed.

That's how that baby-faced moron has "helped" the free software legal cause.

You guys need to hire real IP lawyers, not bullshit pretenders.
And if Bradly is making money, and enough of it, you might have profits you could target.

I kinda think that the "Free software legal" teams exist only to diffuse valid suits,
and stymie the guys who actually wrote the code and retained their copyrights.

Pure legal malpractice by any accounting.

On 2019-01-24 16:25, Boris Lukashev wrote:
You've never heard of VMware, I take it? Its a proprietary half Linux
which beats GPL suits with strong arm tactics and technicalities.
Unlike grsec, they don't distribute any source, because it's proof of
theft... Grsecs back port work is also public, since they're public
upstream patches or mailing list patches, the GCC plugins are the real
magic... Those aren't as GPL as the kernel, rap is patented, respectre
likely will be as well. The critical code changes they need (per CPU
PGD, for one) will not be accepted as Linus has "said so." Those code
bits are out there...

Also, doesn't matter if their patch leaks for the most part (4.4 just
did get leaked a few weeks back), as I wrote before, nobody really has
the time or skill available to maintain at their level of quality...
Linux might be free, but it's not something that should be run in
production when there's data or resource at stake.

Is the thought process that they should open up their commercial
stable code for free to all? Because RHEL has the same "don't leak"
policy on RHEL sources too... VMware even goes so far as to blatantly
claim not to use Linux. How about Google's internal Linux?

GPL is dead (has been for 20y), build the strongest defenses you can
with whatever code you can get and prove, because your adversaries
won't care about which license clause their tooling adheres to.

Boris Lukashev
Systems Architect
Semper Victus

-------- Original Message --------
From: linuxgpletc@xxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 05:35 PM
To: bruce@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: GRSec is vital to Linux security
CC:
moglen@xxxxxxxxxxxx,bkuhn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,compliance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,blukashev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,tcallawa@xxxxxxxxxx,torvalds@xxxxxxxx