FSF Issues Fresh Statement Over ZFS On Linux With GPL Enforcement

[bridgman]

Not exactly. Using the graphics subsystem as an example, those subtrees retain their X11 license so changes can continue to move between (for example) Linux & BSDs.

[ormaaj]

Oh really? That's interesting. I'm very surprised that that actually works in practice, though in the case of the graphics subsystem it's surely a good thing that it does. Outside of the kernel quite frequently the way to make that sort of dual licensing happen is to have a mandatory copyright assignment policy. E.g. the way xamarin used to license mono, or red hat with cygwin. I'm not sure whether it could work that way with the file systems, though I wish it did because a file system becomes immediately more useful just by virtue of being portable. You pretty much need an organization that's in a position to dictate terms to contributors.

[bridgman]

What makes it work AFAIK is license compatibility rather than dual licensing. If you look at the X11 license from a GPL perspective it can be considered as "GPL plus additional rights" (or fewer restrictions), and that is how the code is described in the module license text.

[Awesomeness]

What makes it work AFAIK is license compatibility rather than dual licensing. If you look at the X11 license from a GPL perspective it can be considered as "GPL plus additional rights" (or fewer restrictions), and that is how the code is described in the module license text.

Go ahead and convince Oracle to put ZFS under a GPL-compatible BSD license. Oh, since it's Oracle, make sure it includes some kind of free patent license.

[bridgman]

Sure... would you like a pony as well ?

[unixfan2001]

Go ahead and convince Oracle to put ZFS under a GPL-compatible BSD license. Oh, since it's Oracle, make sure it includes some kind of free patent license.

It's called the CDDL...

[nanonyme]

Go ahead and convince Oracle to put ZFS under a GPL-compatible BSD license. Oh, since it's Oracle, make sure it includes some kind of free patent license.

They are actively backing Btrfs. Just leave the sinking ship that is ZFS already. It stopped being an active project when Sun was bought, now it will remain in zombie mode with legal issues indefinitely

[ormaaj]

They are actively backing Btrfs. Just leave the sinking ship that is ZFS already. It stopped being an active project when Sun was bought, now it will remain in zombie mode with legal issues indefinitely

I haven't yet seen much serious interest from anyone in working on porting btrfs to anywhere zfs is being used, and definitely not as a replacement for ZFS. The legal issues are only an issue for Linux. Nobody else cares about ZFS being CDDL.

[nanonyme]

I haven't yet seen much serious interest from anyone in working on porting btrfs to anywhere zfs is being used, and definitely not as a replacement for ZFS. The legal issues are only an issue for Linux. Nobody else cares about ZFS being CDDL.

The legal issues basically mean that if you go to court saying Oracle infringes your patents, Oracle can revoke you the right to all patented parts of ZFS. CDDL is not actually an open license

[ormaaj]

The legal issues basically mean that if you go to court saying Oracle infringes your patents, Oracle can revoke you the right to all patented parts of ZFS. CDDL is not actually an open license

I happen to know that Oracle doesn't infringe upon any of my zero patents.