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Linus Torvalds Doesn't Recommend Using ZFS On Linux

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  • Originally posted by oiaohm View Post

    Its not just that is a Oracle copyright. Its a Oracle copyright on something that is a suspect license that you cannot be sure you are following it correctly. Please note Oracle is also sitting in the patents over ZFS as well.
    The license is not suspect. See the SFLC. Also, Oracle is sitting on enough patents that no one using Linux (other than Oracle Linux) is safe given the concerns about Oracle if you want to go down that road.

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    • Originally posted by blackiwid View Post

      Sorry but nobody gives a shit about FreeBSD, it's used by 5 People around the world, and don't come now with some Playstation or other devices that might use it, because there you will never use ZFS. So nobody gives a shit to be compatible with them, if that OS would be so great nobody would care to bring ZFS to Linux in the first place because they just would use that System and move on. But people can forgo ZFS but they can't forgo Linux.

      So now let's Talk about Apple and to be complete also about MS, both don't offer YOU any solution to even have something between windows and Apple that fullfills your wishes. So if they don't give a shit about your problem why does the Linux community have to care about apple or windows support?

      So the only shiny feature FreeBSD has over other OSes especially Linux is native ZFS support so if you ask for a alternative to ZFS there is literally no reason to use this OS period. So then let's talk apple + linux support, Veracrypt seems to be the most suggested solution. you have then a encrypted file on your device that get's mounted as FS, the Filesystem below would probably easiest to use HFS+ because both Oses support that.
      Lots of people use FreeBSD. So much so it's on the top cloud providers in the world such as Amazon, Azure, Google Cloud and others. They don't offer that support to an OS with 5 users.. In fact most of them don't offer support to many popular Linux distros.. only the major ones like RedHat, Ubuntu and Suse. No Arch, no Manjaro, no Gentoo, no Alpine.. only major Linux and FreeBSD.. Odd that.. lol maybe you need to educate yourself or adjust your worldview.. dunno.

      Veracrypt does work.. and due to encryption ensuring integrity does ensure the entire volume is correct but doesn't provide an individual block checksum.. Seems like it might be easier to loose the entire volume on Veracrypt than on ZFS... ZFS is easier too.. and it's got snapshots.. shiny. lol

      Edit:
      BTW - Distrowatch.com just switched from hosting on Debian to FreeBSD.
      https://www.reddit.com/r/freebsd/com...o_freebsd_ama/
      Last edited by k1e0x; 14 January 2020, 04:33 PM.

      Comment


      • Originally posted by jaypatelani View Post
        Why not use HammerFS?
        I would.. I like it. (HAMMER2)
        A) it's not mature.
        B) it's not ported to anything (Go get it Linux! It's a free FS better than anything you have and it's BSD Licensed)

        Comment


        • Originally posted by ryao View Post
          The license is not suspect. See the SFLC.
          Don't make me laugh.
          The Software Freedom Law Center provides legal representation and other law related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software.

          This is error if you think this says that CDDL is not suspect.

          There are prior ruling over MPL 1.1 that the SFLC totally does not consider and it openly admits that there are areas in cddl without a clear understanding what the heck it means in simple terms the license is suspect those areas may have a different meaning to what you expect when we get a court order over them.

          In response to such an objection, all distributors would no doubt cease distributing such combinations,
          This is a mistake as well. Different distributions are made in different countries on these unclear license what is legal in one country can be illegal in another. This is partly why Ubuntu and Debian response to CDDL is different.

          Originally posted by ryao View Post
          Also, Oracle is sitting on enough patents that no one using Linux (other than Oracle Linux) is safe given the concerns about Oracle if you want to go down that road.
          Yes Oracle is sitting on a lot of patents. But large section of Oracle patent pool is not usable because rulings over GPL and other things around patents. ZFS is in the location where those patents have be considered.

          Computerworld covers a range of technology topics, with a focus on these core areas of IT: Windows, Mobile, Apple/enterprise, Office and productivity suites, collaboration, web browsers and blockchain, as well as relevant information about companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Google.


          So oracle has the right to the patent licenses to use ZFS that cover CDDL works. But netapp is sitting on patents that that could cover ZFS who has sued.

          Please note I said "sitting in the patents" not that all those patents own to Oracle. Oracle is the only party who as the information on who has patents against ZFS and the terms of use of those patents as a collective. So we need Oracle legal to be answering questions on ZFS.

          Think SFLC goes if the Linux kernel developers object. One problem "kernel licensors" is not worst problem. Netapp the patent holder who could object to ZFS entering kernel mainline they are one of the parties who also holds copyright to parts of the ZFS stuff used by SUN.

          So while ZFS for Linux contains any of the old SUN code you can have Netapp as a copyright holder in mix so kiss good buy to your licensor agreement. Again without SUN legal information that Oracle holds how many more parties are there like this. So the argument that consensus could exist with the current ZFS for Linux source trees it cannot exist.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by ryao View Post

            Oracle owns at least that much of the copyright of the Linux kernel.
            Sure, but that's GPL code.

            The problem isn't that they have written parts of the code. It's that the license allows them to do shady things if they want.

            Regardless of your beliefs on the legality of integrating ZFS with the kernel, there should be zero doubt that if they wanted to Oracle could create a big multi-million dollar lawsuit over it that would take years of time in court to resolve and huge armies of lawyers. They might be able to attempt something similar with pure-GPL code, too, but their chances of getting anywhere with it are much slimmer. Presumably such a lawsuit would be shot down fairly quickly in that case.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by oiaohm View Post

              Don't make me laugh.
              https://www.softwarefreedom.org/reso...rnel-cddl.html
              This is error if you think this says that CDDL is not suspect.

              There are prior ruling over MPL 1.1 that the SFLC totally does not consider and it openly admits that there are areas in cddl without a clear understanding what the heck it means in simple terms the license is suspect those areas may have a different meaning to what you expect when we get a court order over them.

              In response to such an objection, all distributors would no doubt cease distributing such combinations,
              This is a mistake as well. Different distributions are made in different countries on these unclear license what is legal in one country can be illegal in another. This is partly why Ubuntu and Debian response to CDDL is different.


              Yes Oracle is sitting on a lot of patents. But large section of Oracle patent pool is not usable because rulings over GPL and other things around patents. ZFS is in the location where those patents have be considered.

              https://www.techworld.com.au/article...ent_litigation

              So oracle has the right to the patent licenses to use ZFS that cover CDDL works. But netapp is sitting on patents that that could cover ZFS who has sued.

              Please note I said "sitting in the patents" not that all those patents own to Oracle. Oracle is the only party who as the information on who has patents against ZFS and the terms of use of those patents as a collective. So we need Oracle legal to be answering questions on ZFS.

              Think SFLC goes if the Linux kernel developers object. One problem "kernel licensors" is not worst problem. Netapp the patent holder who could object to ZFS entering kernel mainline they are one of the parties who also holds copyright to parts of the ZFS stuff used by SUN.

              So while ZFS for Linux contains any of the old SUN code you can have Netapp as a copyright holder in mix so kiss good buy to your licensor agreement. Again without SUN legal information that Oracle holds how many more parties are there like this. So the argument that consensus could exist with the current ZFS for Linux source trees it cannot exist.
              There are no rulings over the GPL and patents. The GPLv2 also has no patent grant, unlike the CDDL. Oracle is also holding plenty of patents from Sun on UNIX in general. If they wanted to use the nuclear option, ZFS is in a much better position than Linux due to the patent grant of the CDDL.

              That being said, I think calling a well written open source license ”suspect” is not a legitimate argument. It is also not one that even Linus entertains. He simply dislikes taking code that does not have signed off from the copyright holders, especially when one of them is Oracle. That is his only problem with OpenZFS as far as he has told anyone.

              Quite frankly, whether he takes the code into his tree or not does not really matter as he is not in a position to decide what people run or do not run on their machines. If he was, we would not have functional computers given that his tree lacks a functional userspace. Linus taking it would also create headaches for development supporting multiple kernels/platforms that do not occur when being out of tree.

              Netapp does not hold copyright over any part of ZFS. Merely stating that Netapp owns copyright over ZFS indicates a severe lack of understanding of who owns copyright over ZFS, what copyright is or both. You should take the time to learn these things before forming opinions. In specific, copyright has to do with authorship and is entirely separate from patents. ZFS has no netapp code. Therefore netapp does not hold copyright over it. Any reasoning that begins with netapp holds copyright over ZFS is automatically wrong.

              Your remark “without SUN legal information that Oracle holds how many more parties are there like this” is FUD that can be applied to *anything*. Microsoft has a few patents that it has used against the Linux kernel to collect $1 billion in annual royalties from Android phone makers, so it is clear that such FUD could be easily applied to Linux too. Oracle has enough UNIX patents that they likely could do the same or worse with Linux if they tried.
              Last edited by ryao; 14 January 2020, 04:17 AM.

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              • Originally posted by smitty3268 View Post

                Sure, but that's GPL code.

                The problem isn't that they have written parts of the code. It's that the license allows them to do shady things if they want.

                Regardless of your beliefs on the legality of integrating ZFS with the kernel, there should be zero doubt that if they wanted to Oracle could create a big multi-million dollar lawsuit over it that would take years of time in court to resolve and huge armies of lawyers. They might be able to attempt something similar with pure-GPL code, too, but their chances of getting anywhere with it are much slimmer. Presumably such a lawsuit would be shot down fairly quickly in that case.
                The GPLv2 has no patent grant, so code under it is far more vulnerable than code under the CDDL. Being under the GPLv2 does not make it more safe. If anything, it is less safe. That is why the GPLv3 was written.
                Last edited by ryao; 14 January 2020, 03:44 AM.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by ryao View Post

                  Oracle owns at least that much of the copyright of the Linux kernel. This is also true for glibc, MAC OS X, FreeBSD, etcetera. If you want to avoid their copyrights, your choices would be Minix, Haiku and Windows, although they might own portions of those of which I am unaware.
                  Critically, that's covered by GPL.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by ryao View Post

                    https://www.softwarefreedom.org/reso...rnel-cddl.html

                    That being said, you can always request the ZFS source code. The CDDL might be more like the LGPL in terms of letting you mix in proprietary code, but as far as I know, no one actually does.

                    You probably want to take up your complaints about not being able to get kernel source code with Nvidia, IBM (GPFS), Broadcom, etcetera. They are the ones not releasing their code as OSS. Ironically, this is a situation that the mainline kernel created via the module interface to allow ports of drivers because it helped it become popular in the early days. The GPL is concerned with derived works and being from other systems, those modules are not derived from Linux, even if they were adapted to work with it through an interface made to allow for them.
                    So let's quote the article you link to that describes the crux of the matter:
                    In the present case, the files containing the code of the ZFS filesystem are available under free software license, but the terms offered are CDDL, not GPLv2. So although complete and corresponding source code for the GPLv2-licensed kernel binary is available under free license, some files are available only under terms of CDDL, which is inconsistent with the literal meaning of GPLv2 section 2(b). For a community of copyright holders whose consensus intention is to limit their permission to the literal meaning of GPLv2's words, this is a sufficient basis for an objection to the combination.
                    The majority of the article and your arguments are straw-man arguments since binary distribution and source code availability for the end user is not what's on the table here, the problem is that Linus cannot distribute the Linux Kernel source code under GPLv2 if he includes the ZFS source code to the kernel source code tree.

                    Whether or not Nvidia, IBM or Broadcom are releasing and code from their binary distribution is a separate issue completely from what Linus have to do by including ZFS.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by ryao View Post
                      There are no rulings over the GPL and patents. The GPLv2 also has no patent grant, unlike the CDDL. Oracle is also holding plenty of patents from Sun on UNIX in general. If they wanted to use the nuclear option, ZFS is in a much better position than Linux due to the patent grant of the CDDL.
                      That is wrong I don't get where you get the idea that there are no rulings over GPLv2 and patents.
                      Despite billions of lines of source code licensed around the world under the terms of the GPLv2, very few courts have weighed in on elementary questions arising from the license. Progress has been slow, but Robert McHale recounts some recent litigation that has finally put the GPLv2 in the legal spotlight, clarifying a few important aspects of GPLv2 (and other FOSS) license compliance.

                      There are rulings in court like this that GPLv2 contains implied patent license. So GPLv2 does not need a patent grant due to how the license is written. You cannot push patent infringement to breaching your requirements under copyright law that is how GPLv2 implied patent license works so patents laws don't superseded copyright in fact copyright can be written the written in way that superseded all patents laws. Funny enough that was in GPLv2.

                      Really what is written GPLv3 Explicit patent grant you have to obey with GPLv2 implied patent license and every patent case against GPLv2 work has backed this it about time you catch up with court rulings on this topic. GPLv3 Explicit patent grant just make it clear to people what is GPL effects on patents not that it was required to be included. .

                      So legally when it comes to patents GPLv2 turns out to be harder to get around than the CDDL patent grant due to GPLv2 contain no exceptions. So GPLv2 is a form of implied unlimited patent license just like GPLv3 is a explicit unlimited patent license. CDDL only has a limited patent grant so you are in a worse position. Yes once Microsoft developers put exfat into Linux kernel source that triggered the GPLv2 implied patent license for any patents covering it Microsoft has the rights to.

                      CDDL patent grant only works on the licenses you own so if you submit something to CDDL with some third party(Netapp) that you settle with latter you don't have to protect the end users.. GPLv2 and GPLv3 by the GPL licenses implied/explicit unlimited patent license you would have to settle in way to cover all end users.

                      Originally posted by ryao View Post
                      Netapp does not hold copyright over any part of ZFS. Merely stating that Netapp owns copyright over ZFS indicates a severe lack of understanding of who owns copyright over ZFS, what copyright is or both. You should take the time to learn these things before forming opinions. In specific, copyright has to do with authorship and is entirely separate from patents. ZFS has no netapp code. Therefore netapp does not hold copyright over it. Any reasoning that begins with netapp holds copyright over ZFS is automatically wrong.
                      No its not automatically wrong. If you are playing it legally safe you have to presume as part of the settlement:
                      Computerworld covers a range of technology topics, with a focus on these core areas of IT: Windows, Mobile, Apple/enterprise, Office and productivity suites, collaboration, web browsers and blockchain, as well as relevant information about companies such as Microsoft, Apple and Google.


                      That netapp has copyrights over SUN ZFS until you have a letter from Oracle legal stating different.

                      Originally posted by ryao View Post
                      “without SUN legal information that Oracle holds how many more parties are there like this”
                      This statement if you like it or not is true. We need Oracle legal department to clearly state if they have traded the copyright away and who are the patent holders over the SUN ZFS code. Maybe Oracle made ZFS closed source again because they don't have the patents or the copyright to legally distribute it under CDDL. The only party who can answer what the state of play is Oracle.

                      Originally posted by ryao View Post
                      Microsoft has a few patents that it has used against the Linux kernel to collect $1 billion in annual royalties from Android phone makers
                      This is missing the implied patent license of GPLv2 has been used against Microsoft since it has been proven to exist. Some Android makers have used this to get out of paying Microsoft any more money.

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