Re: LUKS Cryptography Support

[Robert Millan]

On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 03:56:53PM +0200, Michael Gorven wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I am currently adding support for LUKS encrypted partitions to GRUB2. 
> Although 
> I'm far from finished, there are a few issues I'd like to address.
> 
> 1. I am using the crypto patch submitted by Simon Peter[1][2]. Are there any 
> plans to integrate this patch, or should I resubmit it as part of my patch?

I don't think it can be merged untill the legal issues are resolved.
Additionally, the maintainers (Marco and Okuji) might require paperwork,
a step at which we didn't get because of the (more problematic) GPL-incompatible
terms in license.

> 2. If I am to submit Simon's patch, what remaining issues are there with it? 
> If there is a problem with the license of the ciphers I can replace them with 
> suitable implementations.

In particular, rmd160.c was problematic:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/grub-devel/2007-09/msg00005.html

> 3. What licenses are suitable for integration with GRUB? Most of the ciphers 
> I 
> need are available in libgcrypt[3], which is copyrighted by the FSF and under 
> LGPL 2.1. I am currently using some other code which is under GPL 2 
> however -- what is the situation with that?

FSF-copyrighted code is always ok.  As for GPL 2 code, if it's not "2 or later"
it can't be legally recombined with GPL 3 code (aside from the constraints
about paperwork, see above).

Hope that helps,

-- 
Robert Millan

<GPLv2> I know my rights; I want my phone call!
<DRM> What good is a phone call… if you are unable to speak?
(as seen on /.)