In June he said that as a customer, it was his pinion that you would be subject to both contributory infringement and breach of contract by employing this product in conjunction with the Linux kernel under the no-redistribution policy currently employed by Grsecurity.

Now it seems that Grsecurity have sued the open-source doyen, his web host, and as-yet-unidentified defendants who may have helped him draft that post, for defamation and business interference.

Grsecurity offers Linux kernel security patches on a paid-for subscription basis. The software hardens kernel defences through checks for common errors like memory overflows.

Perens used the Debian Free Software Guidelines to draft the Open Source Definition, with the help of others, so it is not as if he did not know what he was talking about.
Grsecurity used to allow others to redistribute its patches, but the biz ended that practice for stable releases two years ago and for test patches in April this year. It offers its GPLv2 licensed software through a subscription agreement.

That agreement says that customers who redistribute the code - a right under the GPLv2 license - will no longer be customers and will lose the right to distribute subsequent versions of the software.

Perens said: "GPL version 2 section 6 explicitly prohibits the addition of terms such as this redistribution prohibition."

Grsecurity in San Francisco, California, insists the company's software complies with the GPLv2 and that Perens has defamed them by saying otherwise.

But Perens isn't arguing that the GPLv2 applies to unreleased software. Rather, he asserts the GPLv2, under section 6, specifically forbids the addition of contractual terms.