Originally published at: News - Whonix Forum
Those of us following security news have heard about grsec’s decision by now.
If you are a current grsec sponsor reading this who doesn’t like their de-facto violation of kernel code licensing, I urge you to privately leak updated versions to Kees Cook (keescook@chromium.org) who can study and incorporate the code into mainline without endangering your access. This will free changes back to the community where they belong and in the long-term you won’t be forced to pay through the nose to run a secure kernel.
PaXTeam is making a false equivalency between their hostile actions and RedHat licensing. To be clear, the GPL does not restrict monetizing software. However businesses can still make handsome profits working around the license by providing support services. RedHat releases back source code - though not in the neat broken up patch-sets but they still release it which satisfies the GPL requirements. Grsec is creating a derivative work of GPL’d kernel code and then coercing customers to relinquish their freedoms.
Reminder: if it wasn’t for the GPL they wouldn’t have a codebase to secure in the first place. if they hate copy-left for being too permissive then they can feel free to fork a BSD kernel and copyright the hardened copy they make.
I think most can agree about where those GPL violators should stick their baton but I think there is a good side to all this. Its a painful reminder that unless code is mainlined and project’s contributions are up-streamed its only a matter of time before they disappear and the code is lost.
No doubt this will catalyze KSPP and bring more security to everyone instead of a select few who know how to tweak and compile a kernel. Another side effect is that protections will be rolled out for many more archs than with grsec support only covering x86 and x64.
Its worth reading Kees Cook’s (KSPP project leader) statement answering common accusations made by Spender and PaXTeam and parroted by their supporters who blame everyone else except their idols who stabbed them in the back.
Unlike the biased comparison on the grsec site, it seems KSPP has successfully integrated more features than they were credited. Much work still remains to be done but its definitely a good start. Its becoming clear that the real reason they closed their sources is in a desperate attempt to not become obsolete.
The Gentoo devs feel particularly betrayed after dedicating lots of effort modifying their userland code to be compatible with PaX and being left out in the cold without warning.
This spawned the Hardened Kernel Project an emerging multi-distro (Gentoo, Arch and hopefully Debian) effort to help upstream as much code as possible. If you write kernel code this project can really use your help.