Originally posted by k1e0x
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Back in 2004 when SUN creates CDDL its spirit was to protect Solaris technology from being integrated into Linux and was written intentionally GPL incompatible..
Sun personal was publicly questioned about it.
Schwartz singled out the GPL provision that says source code may be mixed with other code only if the other code also is governed by the GPL. That provision is intended to create a body of software that must remain liberated from proprietary constraints. But Schwartz said that some people he's spoken to dislike it because it precludes them from using open-source software as a foundation for proprietary projects.
CDDL is strictly written to be incompatible with because SUN President wanted to use CDDL works in proprietary projects.
If it was just about Solaris excepting third party drivers they could have used the Apache 2.0 license at the time and not write their own.
This is the difference in spirit between GPL and CDDL. Yes the fragments of parts at first on Solaris that were not CDDL at the first open sourcing was also by Sun President at the time orders.
Originally posted by k1e0x
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Yes the lower staff in SUN who were giving advice on what CDDL had to have to the legal department on the technical requirements were not being told what the orders from the President of SUN to the legal department of SUN. So to the low staff CDDL did not look like it was being written to be intentionally GPL incompatible and they were being used as test people to make sure SUN could publicly argue that this was not some intentional harm. Of course the reality in the legal department of SUN as people who are now ex have also stated was that the orders were to be incompatible in hard to see ways once their NDA was up. Yes this was to attempt to make a viral form of license to slowly get back control long term.
This is just the facts of history we have to live with.
Originally posted by k1e0x
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Nvidia closed source driver on Linux is well and truly pushing a license loop hole but that requires GPL wrapper code that cannot be merged into mainline Linux and the fact the binary blob is not built for Linux. Nvidia closed source driver module is developed for windows then ported to Linux. ZFS on Linux is not developed on Solaris/freebsd then ported to Linux any more so it does not meet this condition any more so its legal position is more peril than it was before.
Final solution to Dtrace for Linux has been not to use any CDDL code in Linux kernel at all or at least not directly. The developers of Dtrace never could get permission out of Oracle legal department to send CDDL code upstream to the Linux kernel. Remember this is personal working for Oracle not some third party as ZFS on Linux is. So they have access to SUN complete old legal records not the fragments that have leaked out to the media with statements and leaks. So the Oracle Dtrace developers have worked around this legal wall of CDDL by obsoleting the code to use something else Linux kernel provided equal or converting to BPF that loaded from userspace so using the Linus kernel license exception.
ZFS path forwards if you follow Dtrace is the fuse/bpf path or somehow get Oracle legal department to sign off thinking this was impossible with Dtrace I would suspect ZFS does not have a hope in hell of this.
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