6 ms·

How is this possible, legally? Based on my basic understanding of the ZFS license, it's not possible to legally distribute ZFS and GPL code (linux kernel) toget

by robbyt 11y ago

How is this possible, legally? Based on my basic understanding of the ZFS license, it's not possible to legally distribute ZFS and GPL code (linux kernel) together.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ZenoArrow 11y ago
ZFS has been available in Linux for a long time, the licence restrictions hold it back from being included in the kernel, but it's available as a FUSE filesystem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace EDIT: Looking through the comments in the article, it's being suggested this isn't using the FUSE implementation of ZFS, and that somehow it's part of the kernel. Not sure how they've legally managed to do that! EDIT 2: Looks like it's a kernel module, as other comments here suggest.
- cjbprime 11y ago
  > Not sure how they've legally managed to do that! Answer: They haven't. :) They've just created a GPLv2 violation.
  - ZenoArrow 11y ago
    It looks like they got around it by distributing OpenZFS as a kernel module. If that's permitted for closed source kernel blobs, it's probably fine for this code too.
    - cjbprime 11y ago
      It is not permitted for closed source kernel blobs; those are violations too.
      - ZenoArrow 11y ago
        So using a kernel module for the closed source NVIDIA driver for Linux is a GPL violation? As far as I understood, the GPL only applies for code that is directly linked to it. A call to an external library (e.g. a kernel module) wouldn't necessarily apply. The code is being delivered as separate binaries.
        cjbprime 11y ago
        > So using a kernel module for the closed source NVIDIA driver for Linux is a GPL violation? Yes. Your understanding isn't correct. With NVIDIA, there's this complicated dance where you download source code from nVidia for the kernel module, then compile it on your own machine and use it -- you aren't violating copyright because you don't distribute the kernel module that you compiled for yourself on your own machine. But that kernel module does indeed violate GPLv2, and you can't distribute it legally, and neither could Canonical or nVidia (which is why they do the dance above instead).
        ZenoArrow 11y ago
        > "But that kernel module does indeed violate GPLv2, and you can't distribute it legally, and neither could Canonical or nVidia (which is why they do the dance above instead)." If that's the case, then why doesn't the FSF sue Linux kernel developers over licence violations? There are clearly pre-compiled binary blobs distributed along with the mainline kernel (otherwise there would be no need for the Linux-libre project to exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux-libre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux-libre ). There's little point having a licence if there's no consequences for breaking it. I suspect they don't because it's not a simple case, and that such a measure would be somewhat counterproductive for their cause.
        cjbprime 11y ago
        > If that's the case, then why doesn't the FSF sue Linux kernel developers over licence violations? I don't understand. The Linux kernel developers hold the copyright on the kernel. If someone sues someone else, it's them --- the kernel developers -- who have standing to be doing the suing. They didn't give their copyright to the FSF merely as a result of choosing to use the FSF's license.
henesy 11y ago
It says that it is OpenZFS specifically.
- davexunit 11y ago
  Which is still CDDL licensed and thus GPLv2 incompatible. Here's the copyright file from the relevant commit to the Xenial kernel tree: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git/ubuntu/ubuntu-xenial.git/diff/zfs/COPYRIGHT?id=b65ce14d3445e8fe69b5d59aaaf2699319714179 http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git/ubuntu/ubuntu-xenial.git/diff/z... The majority of the code in the ZFS on Linux port comes from OpenSolaris which has been released under the terms of the CDDL open source license. This includes the core ZFS code, libavl, libnvpair, libefi, libunicode, and libutil.
- alcari 11y ago
  OpenZFS was forked from the original Sun/Solaris ZFS code base, which Sun made available regularly. It's still CDDL.
parasubvert 11y ago
http://zfsonlinux.org/faq.html#WhatAboutTheLicensingIssue http://zfsonlinux.org/faq.html#WhatAboutTheLicensingIssue It is fine if it is a kernel module.
- pilif 11y ago
  That's what they say - others claim that even a dynamically loaded module is producing a derivative and thus you're not allowed to distribute a non-GPL-ed binary module. Matthew Garret (a kernel developer and thus a shared copyright holder of the kernel) is of the opinion that linking a binary ZFS module is not legal: https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700021939708915712 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700021939708915712 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700073945064611841 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700073945064611841 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700074164435091456 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700074164435091456 As a copyright holder, he is potentially in the position of suing canonical over this (and he doesn't like them very much, so he just might)
  - unethical_ban 11y ago
    I know zealots are necessary to keep a balance. I've typically appreciated the utility of people like RMS to the free software movement. That said, Matt Garret's Captain Ahab-like zeal of keeping one of the most useful pieces of open-source code away from Linux, while taking potshots at Ubuntu, is really off-putting. I guess I'm not so pure. Which is why I run my file server with BSD. I'm really excited to see ZFS functional in 16.04, and in fact, that got me to install the pre-beta just to mess with it.
    - davexunit 11y ago
      >That said, Matt Garret's Captain Ahab-like zeal of keeping one of the most useful pieces of open-source code away from Linux, while taking potshots at Ubuntu, is really off-putting. Your response to a large company violating the license that Linux is distributed under is to blame Matthew Garret for pointing it out?
davexunit 11y ago
>How is this possible, legally? It's not. Canonical has blatantly violated the GPL before and gotten away with it.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> How is this possible, legally? My understanding is that it isn't under the theory of what counts as a derivative work requiring a license (and, thus, what is subject to GPLv2 in the first place) espoused by the FSF, however, I believe that view has been hotly disputed as to its accuracy under US copyright law (at least) for about as long as the GPL has existed and never been tested in court. The FSF, in general -- as is unsurprising for entity that relies on maximally leveraging copyright protections to achieve its ends -- holds to a fairly maximalist view of the legal rights of copyright owners.

by robbyt 11y ago

How is this possible, legally? Based on my basic understanding of the ZFS license, it's not possible to legally distribute ZFS and GPL code (linux kernel) together.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ZenoArrow 11y ago

ZFS has been available in Linux for a long time, the licence restrictions hold it back from being included in the kernel, but it's available as a FUSE filesystem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_in_Userspace EDIT: Looking through the comments in the article, it's being suggested this isn't using the FUSE implementation of ZFS, and that somehow it's part of the kernel. Not sure how they've legally managed to do that! EDIT 2: Looks like it's a kernel module, as other comments here suggest.

cjbprime 11y ago
> Not sure how they've legally managed to do that! Answer: They haven't. :) They've just created a GPLv2 violation.
- ZenoArrow 11y ago
  It looks like they got around it by distributing OpenZFS as a kernel module. If that's permitted for closed source kernel blobs, it's probably fine for this code too.
  - cjbprime 11y ago
    It is not permitted for closed source kernel blobs; those are violations too.
    - ZenoArrow 11y ago
      So using a kernel module for the closed source NVIDIA driver for Linux is a GPL violation? As far as I understood, the GPL only applies for code that is directly linked to it. A call to an external library (e.g. a kernel module) wouldn't necessarily apply. The code is being delivered as separate binaries.
      - cjbprime 11y ago
        > So using a kernel module for the closed source NVIDIA driver for Linux is a GPL violation? Yes. Your understanding isn't correct. With NVIDIA, there's this complicated dance where you download source code from nVidia for the kernel module, then compile it on your own machine and use it -- you aren't violating copyright because you don't distribute the kernel module that you compiled for yourself on your own machine. But that kernel module does indeed violate GPLv2, and you can't distribute it legally, and neither could Canonical or nVidia (which is why they do the dance above instead).
        ZenoArrow 11y ago
        > "But that kernel module does indeed violate GPLv2, and you can't distribute it legally, and neither could Canonical or nVidia (which is why they do the dance above instead)." If that's the case, then why doesn't the FSF sue Linux kernel developers over licence violations? There are clearly pre-compiled binary blobs distributed along with the mainline kernel (otherwise there would be no need for the Linux-libre project to exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux-libre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux-libre ). There's little point having a licence if there's no consequences for breaking it. I suspect they don't because it's not a simple case, and that such a measure would be somewhat counterproductive for their cause.
        cjbprime 11y ago
        > If that's the case, then why doesn't the FSF sue Linux kernel developers over licence violations? I don't understand. The Linux kernel developers hold the copyright on the kernel. If someone sues someone else, it's them --- the kernel developers -- who have standing to be doing the suing. They didn't give their copyright to the FSF merely as a result of choosing to use the FSF's license.

henesy 11y ago

It says that it is OpenZFS specifically.

davexunit 11y ago
Which is still CDDL licensed and thus GPLv2 incompatible. Here's the copyright file from the relevant commit to the Xenial kernel tree: http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git/ubuntu/ubuntu-xenial.git/diff/zfs/COPYRIGHT?id=b65ce14d3445e8fe69b5d59aaaf2699319714179 http://kernel.ubuntu.com/git/ubuntu/ubuntu-xenial.git/diff/z... The majority of the code in the ZFS on Linux port comes from OpenSolaris which has been released under the terms of the CDDL open source license. This includes the core ZFS code, libavl, libnvpair, libefi, libunicode, and libutil.
alcari 11y ago
OpenZFS was forked from the original Sun/Solaris ZFS code base, which Sun made available regularly. It's still CDDL.

parasubvert 11y ago

http://zfsonlinux.org/faq.html#WhatAboutTheLicensingIssue http://zfsonlinux.org/faq.html#WhatAboutTheLicensingIssue It is fine if it is a kernel module.

pilif 11y ago
That's what they say - others claim that even a dynamically loaded module is producing a derivative and thus you're not allowed to distribute a non-GPL-ed binary module. Matthew Garret (a kernel developer and thus a shared copyright holder of the kernel) is of the opinion that linking a binary ZFS module is not legal: https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700021939708915712 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700021939708915712 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700073945064611841 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700073945064611841 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700074164435091456 https://twitter.com/mjg59/status/700074164435091456 As a copyright holder, he is potentially in the position of suing canonical over this (and he doesn't like them very much, so he just might)
- unethical_ban 11y ago
  I know zealots are necessary to keep a balance. I've typically appreciated the utility of people like RMS to the free software movement. That said, Matt Garret's Captain Ahab-like zeal of keeping one of the most useful pieces of open-source code away from Linux, while taking potshots at Ubuntu, is really off-putting. I guess I'm not so pure. Which is why I run my file server with BSD. I'm really excited to see ZFS functional in 16.04, and in fact, that got me to install the pre-beta just to mess with it.
  - davexunit 11y ago
    >That said, Matt Garret's Captain Ahab-like zeal of keeping one of the most useful pieces of open-source code away from Linux, while taking potshots at Ubuntu, is really off-putting. Your response to a large company violating the license that Linux is distributed under is to blame Matthew Garret for pointing it out?

davexunit 11y ago

>How is this possible, legally? It's not. Canonical has blatantly violated the GPL before and gotten away with it.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> How is this possible, legally? My understanding is that it isn't under the theory of what counts as a derivative work requiring a license (and, thus, what is subject to GPLv2 in the first place) espoused by the FSF, however, I believe that view has been hotly disputed as to its accuracy under US copyright law (at least) for about as long as the GPL has existed and never been tested in court. The FSF, in general -- as is unsurprising for entity that relies on maximally leveraging copyright protections to achieve its ends -- holds to a fairly maximalist view of the legal rights of copyright owners.