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

Greg Smith wrote:
> 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.

OK, I can understand the purpose of pgsql-hackers and pgsql-patches list.
At first, I'll have a discussion here.

>> 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.

SE-PostgreSQL internally uses libselinux, glibc and PostgreSQL internal
APIs like SearchSysCache().
I'm not a lawyer, but I believe they cannot enforce us to apply a specific
lisence. So, I clearly say SE-PostgreSQL feature is licensed with the same
one of PostgreSQL.
No need to say, more conprehensive checks and reviews are welcome.

Thanks,
-- 
OSS Platform Development Division, NEC
KaiGai Kohei <kaigai@ak.jp.nec.com>