Ubuntu Developers Seem To Be Really Pursuing ZFS Root Partition Support On The Desktop

[skeevy420]

Ah that's good news finally.

I'm really getting annoyed by how Btrfs upstream is still very far from dealing with basic shit like "a drive disappears from the array" in RAID1 and "actually dealing with a degraded array without doing a silent mess until reboot, then freaking out on boot and requiring a ton of hand-holding to fix the mess".

I'd still prefer much more OpenSUSE over that so I think I'll try to see how stable OpenSUSE Tumbleweed can be on a ZFS array first.

I didn't have any issues getting ZFS going on Tumbleweed, Suse, or OpenSuse for non-root volumes, both 0.8 and 7.12. I couldn't say for root and I don't remember which community repo I used.

[Awesomeness]

As it is, Linus Torvalds himself has already settled this argument for us:

There we go. AFS and ZFS are both kernel modules for Unix-styled file systems, use incompatible-with-GPL licenses, and share similar features to works that exist in the kernel. Because of that, any case brought before a court would likely win in ZFS's favor and potentially weaken the GPL at the same time.

This. ZFS's compatibility layer, SPL, is under GPL and therefore totally compatible with the kernel's license.

Anyone who disagrees may sue Canonical but nobody did. In reality everyone involved knows that what Canonical does is perfectly legal.

[starshipeleven]

Anyone who disagrees may sue Canonical but nobody did. In reality everyone involved knows that what Canonical does is perfectly legal.

It's too soon for Oracle (or anyone else equally interested in fat stacks) to nomnomnom on Canonical, they will wait until the fruit is ripe, like they did with Google and Android/Java legal battle about copyrighted API names or some shit like that for 9 billion US dollars.

Really, in the actual reality there is no such thing as "perfectly legal". There is always some form of risk someone will come at you with bullshit like that and you have to deal with it.

[Chugworth]

It's too soon for Oracle (or anyone else equally interested in fat stacks) to nomnomnom on Canonical, they will wait until the fruit is ripe, like they did with Google and Android/Java legal battle about copyrighted API names or some shit like that for 9 billion US dollars.

Really, in the actual reality there is no such thing as "perfectly legal". There is always some form of risk someone will come at you with bullshit like that and you have to deal with it.

That's true, but with the way the patent system works, the same could be said for any technology. Basically anyone that comes to market with a big money-making product is exposing themselves to lawsuits from patent trolls. Canonical's lawyers have apparently looked at the issues and feel they could make a strong enough case if it were to ever go to court.

[mskarbek]

Serously it's 3 packages that need to be recompiled in a specific order, and there must be a way to keep the kernel locked to the last compatible version with the ZFS package. What is so fucking hard about that.

Nothing, it's just a matter of a meta-package that combines zfs modules with specific kernel. That is exactly what I am doing for my personal use. Works perfectly well on Fedora.

[k1e0x]

ZFS can cure cancer for all I care, the reason why it doesn't belong in Linux is the license, and that by itself is a good enough reason. I would support the idea of adding an intentional panic when the module is loaded in the mainline kernel.

What about supporting development of state of art file systems, such as HAMMER2? ZFS is already out there, but I haven't seen people calling to start work on a port to Linux.

I like HAMMER2, I've no problem with that but you'll need to get it by religous Linux zealots like yourself because it's got the wrong license for you. "GPL onry ppl"

I happen to *like* CDDL/MPL licenses. Have you read it? File based, weak copyleft, flexible and still requires changes to be public. It's the good parts of the GPL and not the bad.

[aht0]

Its kind of odd people seem to be so interested in ZFS when Linux has its own GPL filesystem called btrfs which works very well. Why doesnt Canonical start acting like they are not insane and help improve btrfs? You probably cant legally or morally do ZFS in a distro because of the licensing. I am not fond of BSD licenses because companies should give back their improvements rather than take take take.

You are wondering over one fundamental problem with Linux, which could be described as "start with a hurrah' , lose interest half-way through without it ever getting completely finished, start something similar anew, repeat".

'take, take, take' is largely your imagination.

[starshipeleven]

Nothing, it's just a matter of a meta-package that combines zfs modules with specific kernel. That is exactly what I am doing for my personal use. Works perfectly well on Fedora.

I know. I'm complaining about the lack of concerted efforts even in distros that are supposed to support it semi-officially like Arch and derivatives.

[starshipeleven]

That's true, but with the way the patent system works, the same could be said for any technology. Basically anyone that comes to market with a big money-making product is exposing themselves to lawsuits from patent trolls.

In this case there is a known license clash though, so the balance is tipped in the troll favor.

Canonical's lawyers have apparently looked at the issues and feel they could make a strong enough case if it were to ever go to court.

I don't trust Canonical's lawyers decision blindly.

[starshipeleven]

I like HAMMER2, I've no problem with that but you'll need to get it by religous Linux zealots like yourself because it's got the wrong license for you. "GPL onry ppl"

Don't post bullshit. The main reason none cares about porting HAMMER2 is that it is a cluster filesystem, and Linux has like 4 decent cluster filesystems already.

If Btrfs wasn't still in development none would give a shit about ZFS either.