LWN on the Patent Encumbrence of SELinux

Anonymous Coward writes "LWN has a story about patents in SELinux. The article says: "Much of the actual work in the implementation of SELinux was done by Secure Computing Corporation (SCC). SCC, in its implementation of SELinux, used a technology that it calls type enforcement. As it turns out, SCC has a patent on this technology." Sigh.

Comments

Re:My IANAL conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

No.
From clause 7 at http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

"If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program."

Because so few people have actually READ the GPL

[Rogerborg]

I'll post the relevant section here:

• 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

The situation that the FSF had in mind was a company taking GPL code, then injecting patented code in a attempt to de-GPL it and make it proprietary. The protection provided by copyright is the leverage that enforces this.

What they didn't apparently consider was a patent owner voluntarily providing code (that they have the copyright to) under the GPL license. However, I think (I hope) the license is clear enough that if the code is GPL, it can't be retracted (even by the copyright holder) or restricted by patents.

IANAL, but I bet this is giving some FSF lawyers pause to consider whether they need an explicit clause in the GPL to cover this.