Re: ZFS with Linux: An Open Plea

Daniel Hazelton
2007-04-17T16:22:32Z

On Tuesday 17 April 2007 09:47:32 Tomasz Kłoczko wrote:
> On Tue, 17 Apr 2007, Theodore Tso wrote:
> [..]
>
> > Well, that was totally useless answer from the ZFS developers. What
> > he should have told you is to contact Sun management, since they are
> > the only ones who can decide whether or not to release ZFS under a GPL
> > license, and more importantly, to give a patent license for any
> > patents they may have filed in the course of developing ZFS. This is
> > not anything Linux developers can help you with.
>
> Realy can't or don't want (?)

As it has been explained to you before it is "can't"

> So who is responsible for potential changing Linux code licensing for
> allow if not incorporate CDDL code correct interraction without breaking
> some law ?

If I've parsed this query correctly the answer is: Linux is licensed under the
GPL and because a number of people that have contributed code to it can no
longer agree to a change in the license because they have died this cannot be
changed. That was explained quite clearly in several mails as well.

> And/or what Linux can loose on follow this king changes ?
> And/or why Linux code licensing can't evolve ? Seems when Linux code was
> licensed noone was thinking about case like interraction with code under
> license like CDDL so why now it can be corrected and still many people try
> to think like "anything arond Linux must evolve .. but not Linux" (?)

When Linux was licensed under the GPL there was only *ONE* real choice for
licensing it. Linus released the code under the GPL and there it has
remained, with Linus leading development. If Linux had *NOT* been released
under the GPL it would not be as popular or as powerful as it is - and that
is not an opinion but a statement of fact.

> Why this can't be fixes ?

See the previous statement and several previous mails in this thread. Linux is
licensed under the GPL, it is the *only* license agreed to by everyone that
has contributed code. If I remember the statistics, there have been something
like 10,000 different people that have contributed code. Since each
contributor holds the copyright on their code they are the *ONLY* people that
could change the license on it. Anyone attempting to change the license
without agreement from *everyone* that has contributed code to the kernel
they are in violation of US and international copyright laws.

> If in this ponit in Linux "evniroment" can't be chaged .. sorry but is it
> not kind of hipocritics ?

Nope. You've just ignored it when it was explained *why* the existing ZFS code
cannot be simply be ported to Linux. If you really need ZFS on linux, might I
suggest that you port the code on your own and maintain whatever patches are
needed to use it? As it stands ZFS *might* show up in Linux as a from-scratch
implementation, although I stress the "might" because there are patents
involved.

DRH

(Now please, drop the subject - IMNSHO it is never going to happen)