Re: FW: Crypto

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <[e-mail]>
By author:    "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <[e-mail]>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
>
>    Date: 	Thu, 03 Aug 2000 16:09:41 -0400
>    From: Sandy Harris <[e-mail]>
> 
>    What needs to be done to get the FreeS/WAB KLIPS (kernel IPSEC)
>    patches into the standard kernel distribution? Or should the target
>    be a KLIPS module that plugs cleanly into a standard kernel? What
>    about the encrypting file system stuff?
> 
> My understanding that one of the potential problems is that the
> Free S/WAN folks wanted to make it be the case that *no* changes be made
> to the KLIPS code once it was merged into the kernel.  This is a
> complete non-starter, since kernel developers need to be able to make
> interface changes, and then sweep through the KLIPS code to fix the code
> to use the new kernel interfaces.
> 

Now, Sandy is one of the FreeS/WAN people, so I would assume that he's
talking with some amount of authority.

> 
>    So FreeS/WAN is being very careful to ensure that US law clearly
>    does not apply. We won't even take a one-line bug fix from an
>    American, though we happily accpet problem reports.
> 
> I personally think if you want to enforce this restriction on code which
> is going to be folded into the Linux kernel, that it will be a complete
> non-starter.
> 

Not really.  They can maintain a "clean" tree in Canada.  Linus can
still integrate bug fixes from other sources into the main kernel.

	-hpa
-- 
<[e-mail]> at work, <[e-mail]> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
http://www.zytor.com/~hpa/puzzle.txt