Re: [PATCHES] [0/4] Proposal of SE-PostgreSQL patches

On Mon, 17 Mar 2008, KaiGai Kohei wrote:

> I'll submit the proposal of SE-PostgreSQL patches again, because some of previous
> messages are filtered due to attachment and I cannot provide whole of patches yet.

This is actually what you should have done from the beginning. And it
only should have gone to the pgsql-hackers list, which is the only one I'm
replying to. Your patches are at this point a proposal, as you say in the
subject, and those go to the pgsql-hackers list with the minimum of files
necessary to support them. pgsql-patches is generally aimed at patches
that have already been discussed on the hackers list, ones that are
basically ready to apply to the source code.

> The libselinux is linked with SE-PostgreSQL, but it is licensed as
> public domain software by NSA.

As for the licensing issues here, what everyone is looking for is a clear
statement of the SELinux license from the source of that code. The
official NSA statment at http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/info/license.cfm says:

"All source code found on this site is released under the same terms and
conditions as the original sources. For example, the patches to the Linux
kernel, patches to many existing utilities, and some of the new programs
available here are released under the terms and conditions of the GNU
General Public License (GPL). Please refer to the source code for specific
license information."

GPL is a perfectly good license, but it's far from clear whether code
derived from it can be incorporated into PostgreSQL even if you wrote all
of it yourself. I just checked libselinux, and as you say it includes a
LICENSE file that states "This library (libselinux) is public domain
software, i.e. not copyrighted.". That's good, but a similar independant
review will need to happen for every component you interact with here, on
top of a technical review. Luckily this is something a lot of people
would like and that should all get taken care of.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith(at)gregsmith(dot)com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD