Ubuntu Is Planning To Make The ZFS File-System A "Standard" Offering

[chithanh]

Staffan
That is wrong, the CDDL was modelled after the MPL. It also inherited the MPL's GPL incompatibility. Even those parts that the Debian folks didn't like about the CDDL were 1:1 taken from the MPL (which exposed quite some hypocrisy in Debian but I digress).

And to be more precise, it is not the CDDL which prevents Solaris code from entering the Linux kernel. It is the GPL which prevents it.

[unixfan2001]

What utter BS! The CDDL license was intentionally crafted to be incompatible with GPL to prevent Solaris code from ending up in the Linux kernel and you are blaming the GPL/FSF!

1. It's not the CDDL that seeks to subvert all other free and open source software licenses.
2. What you're saying is factually wrong and, to be honest, sounds a lot like yet another silly conspiracy theory out of the mouth of a community that already has way too many nutcases.
3. How would you like it if you went over to borrow sugar from your neighbour, only for him to return three days later, suing you for your house? That's essentially what the GPL works like in the background. It assumes that all code written under it is more important than the code another project under a differing license may depend upon.
This isn't "free", "liberal" or "open source". This is theft, plain and simple.

[jrssnet]

A quick Google search suggests that the only attorney with an actual published opinion is this guy:

http://www.rtt-law.com/public/files/...te%20paper.pdf

His thinking is somewhat different than private opinions that I have had in that it relies on fair use, but he still concludes ZoL is fine. The ones with whom I have spoken directly took the stronger argument that a Linux port of ZFS is a derived work of OpenSolaris, not Linux.

For what it's worth, Robert and I worked on that paper together for a presentation at POSSCON. I honestly had no idea what conclusion he would come to; I merely asked the questions and answered technical questions from time to time. Robert mostly worked the fair use angle because it trumps the question of whether you can call any LKM by necessity a "derivative work" of the kernel regardless of its origin elsewhere, which is a position that has been taken by the FSF in the past.

We co presented at POSSCON, and Bradley Kuhn of the FSF was in the audience. Brad's not a lawyer himself, but he's been directly involved in the vast majority, if not *all*, of the GPL enforcement lawsuits that have ever occurred, and he very vocally and vehemently objected to our conclusions.

IANAL and I'm not qualified to say who had the right of it, Robert or Brad. I do know that there is already work underway to get Oracle to overcome the licensing issues with OTHER cddl codebases being used in unbreakable Linux, and that hopefully that will get used as a spearhead to do the same for ZFS.

At this point everybody, the FSF included, wants ZFS available on Linux. The major difference of opinion is in whether you just say screw it, bring it in and who cares, or whether you fix the license issues more neatly to avoid setting precedents that could potentially weaken the GPL. Brad, and the FSF, clearly favor the latter approach... and honestly, i can't blame them, even though i personally have a vested interest in getting this shit resolved asap.

[nanonyme]

Guest
That is wrong, the CDDL was modelled after the MPL. It also inherited the MPL's GPL incompatibility. Even those parts that the Debian folks didn't like about the CDDL were 1:1 taken from the MPL (which exposed quite some hypocrisy in Debian but I digress).

And to be more precise, it is not the CDDL which prevents Solaris code from entering the Linux kernel. It is the GPL which prevents it.

Kind of, sort of. It's actually the fact that CDDL has interesting patent clauses such that you lose ability to use certain core parts of ZFS at all if patent you end up losing your permissions to using the patented technologies. Current patent holder is afaik Oracle. So a company that uses ZFS and has a patent disagreement with Oracle for other reasons may soon notice they have to drop usage of ZFS fast. GPL has rather saner patent clauses

[chithanh]

Patent retaliation clauses are nothing new, e.g. Apache License v2 has that too (even with immediate termination and not 60 days grace period), and that license is GPLv3 compatible.