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John Ogness | 18 May 2003 14:07
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Licenses

Hi,

I guess I should have anticipated this topic from the start. If Dazuko 
wants to evolve to be a cross-platform standard, it needs a license that 
will permit this. Unfortunately, the GPL license would make things very 
difficult (if not impossible) for MacOS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, and Windows 
integration. I understand and respect the GPL, however I feel it will 
hinder Dazuko from becoming a cross-platform standard for file access 
control.

I would like to move Dazuko to a BSD license (just as I have already 
done with the interface). On Linux, this shouldn't change anything. When 
Dazuko is built using the Linux source, it will fall under the GPL 
license (which is ok, because the GPL also satisfies BSD). This means 
that Dazuko under Linux will still be GPL'd (as it is currently), but it 
also means that under other operating systems it will BSD. This will 
even satisfy Microsoft licensing.

What is the downside? It would mean that on non-Linux operating systems, 
organizations could make changes to Dazuko and not be required to 
display or recommit their changes. I, however, feel that this is a minor 
issue and that Dazuko would not become a platform for organizational 
disputes and competitions.

Before moving Dazuko to a BSD license, I would like to get some feedback 
about it. I will also be contacting the other developers to get their 
specific input:
	Andre Duclos
	Danilo Massa
	Steve Wade
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S Wade | 18 May 2003 20:18
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Re: Licenses


It seems like a good idea to me, especially since the license isn't changing 
for Linux. I don't like the idea of changes not getting back to us, but I 
imagine people, if not companies, would rather have the dazuko team's 
support and input on their changes rather than hording them. And since these 
new platforms won't be supported overnight, that will give us a chance to 
try them on one at a time and possibly adopt a different license if needed.

Do you have an address handy for the text of the current BSD license?

However, any company I worked for wouldn't touch a license change without 
running it through the legal department. Can we do something similar?

Swade

>From: John Ogness <jogness <at> antivir.de>
>Reply-To: jogness <at> antivir.de
>To: dazuko-devel <at> nongnu.org
>Subject: [Dazuko-devel] Licenses
>Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 14:07:57 +0200
>
>Hi,
>
>I guess I should have anticipated this topic from the start. If Dazuko 
>wants to evolve to be a cross-platform standard, it needs a license that 
>will permit this. Unfortunately, the GPL license would make things very 
>difficult (if not impossible) for MacOS X, FreeBSD, Solaris, and Windows 
>integration. I understand and respect the GPL, however I feel it will 
>hinder Dazuko from becoming a cross-platform standard for file access 
>control.
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John Ogness | 19 May 2003 11:09
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Re: Licenses

Hi Swade,

You said: "especially since the license isn't changing for Linux". The 
license *will* be changing to a BSD license for all platforms. It is 
just that on Linux, the GPL license (from Linux itself) will force 
Dazuko to become GPL. This is ok because the BSD license will still be 
satisfiable as GPL. I just wanted to make sure that you (and others) 
understand that the Dazuko will be completely under a BSD license (even 
if the end-effect for Linux is that it is "forced" to GPL).

You also mentioned running the license change through a legal 
department. I unfortunately do not have one of those handy. :) However, 
I have personally done extensive researching to determine the impact of 
this license switch. I am personally confident that it will help us to 
be where we want to be. I am trying to welcome commercial support, even 
if it means they can make personal tweaks on non-Linux platforms and not 
share those tweaks. I personally feel that the trade-offs benefit the 
vast majority (the Dazuko project included).

I also do not want commercial organizations to be afraid that we will 
later switch the license on them, requiring them to publish their 
tweaks. This would damage our relationship, trust, and future. If we 
decide to later change the license, it would be after the approval from 
many groups, including those whose products are based on Dazuko.

Below I have included the BSD license (which can be found in the Dazuko 
package because the interface is already using this license).

John Ogness
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Chris Rutledge | 27 May 2003 16:16

Yet another Red Hat hidden symbol - sys_exit

With the latest release of the Red Hat kernel for the 7.x series, the dazuko
module will not load due to a missing symbol (sys_exit). 

[root <at> wolverine dazuko-1.2.0]# insmod dazuko.o 
dazuko.o: unresolved symbol sys_exit 
[root <at> wolverine dazuko-1.2.0]# 

The latest kernel version is 2.4.20-13.7 

Thanks, 
Chris
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John Ogness | 30 May 2003 12:41
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Hidden System Call Table

Hi,

With RedHat's newer kernels, the system call table is hidden. This was
ok, because a workaround was submitted by Danilo Massa that allowed the
table to be found using sys_exit. However, with the new RedHat kernels,
sys_exit is also not available. I have released 1.2.1-pre1 of Dazuko,
which can now find the system call table based on sys_close. This is
turning out to be a cat and mouse game with RedHat. :(

The good news is that RedHat is being forced to create tighter and more
secure kernels. Unfortunately, this means that Dazuko will need to find
a better way to integrate with the RedHat kernels. I would like to meet
with Amon Ott (from RSBAC) to discuss better alternatives to "hooking"
the system call table. Hopefully this will happen soon. :)

Lately I have been very busy with the 1.3 branch (implementing the new
cross-platform layer). This should be finished within the next month,
which will allow for fairly simple porting to FreeBSD 4.x (my next
target platform).

John Ogness

--

-- 
Dazuko Maintainer
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