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The other reply [1] nails the real point: No one at Oracle is complaining. If they were, then one could care about their POV. You also ignore the binary kernel

The other reply [1] nails the real point: No one at Oracle is complaining. If they were, then one could care about their POV. You also ignore the binary kernel object point: Nvidia's drivers are completely proprietary and closed source. How is that in any way less of a violation? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11177128 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11177128

carussell 11y ago
There's lots to respond to in this comment, but I'm going to go away and come back to see if anyone else steps in to address them. I don't want to seem like I'm trying to dominate the conversation. (In the meantime, please see my other comments.)
- deleted 11y ago
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Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago
> If they were, then one could care about their POV. Oracle isn't exactly known for their attempts at fostering good-will with the open source community. Considering that, I don't think they have much incentive to complain now, even if their lawyers are 100% sure that there is a violation of their copyright. Instead they can just wait for Canonical to hang themselves, then sue them and their customers for the fair market value plus damages. (Maybe they'll offer Canonical's customers a good deal when they switch to Oracle Linux.)
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  Sue them for what? No one anywhere has suggested even a theory where Oracle's license on ZFS is violated.
  - Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago
    I thought TFA argues releasing a binary combining code under GPL 2 and CDDL 1 violates both of those licenses. But my point was: IF Oracle thinks their copyright is being violated, they wouldn't complain NOW. If they don't think so, they wouldn't complain either. So Oracle staying silent shouldn't be taken as a signal of their opinion on the matter.
    - cyphar 11y ago
      Canonical doesn't ship binaries containing ZFS+Linux. They ship the source code with scripts that build and insert it into the running kernel.
      - jepler 11y ago
        I believe that had been the case for some time, but it will no longer be true with the next Ubuntu release. (that is why everyone is particularly concerned about the issue right now) If you look at the .diff.gz associated with Xenial's kernel, linked from http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/linux-image-4.4.0-7-generic http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/linux-image-4.4.0-7-generi... you will see that this diff adds spl/ and zfs/ directories to the linux source tree. I believe, but don't know for certain because the "[list of files]" links are all broken at the time I write this message, that zfs.ko is in the same binary .deb package as the GPL'd kernel. That's not to say that mere aggregation is enough to trigger the portions of the GPL that also require a derived work in the copyright sense, but the Conservancy post we started with lays out in detail their view: A particular zfs.ko does nothing until it is linked with a matching version of the Linux kernel; the fact that the linking is dynamic and not static is irrelevant in their analysis.
deleted 11y ago
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gillianseed 11y ago
>The other reply [1] nails the real point: No one at Oracle is complaining. Canonical hasn't shipped their distro with the ZFS kernel module yet. My impression of Oracle is that they let their lawsuits do the talking. >You also ignore the binary kernel object point: Nvidia's drivers are completely proprietary and closed source. How is that in any way less of a violation? AFAIK NVidia's drivers are not a default part of any distribution (including Ubuntu from Canonical) and has to be enabled/installed explicitly by the end user, meanwhile Canonical said they were going to make the ZFS kernel module part of their default distribution.

carussell 11y ago

There's lots to respond to in this comment, but I'm going to go away and come back to see if anyone else steps in to address them. I don't want to seem like I'm trying to dominate the conversation. (In the meantime, please see my other comments.)

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago

> If they were, then one could care about their POV. Oracle isn't exactly known for their attempts at fostering good-will with the open source community. Considering that, I don't think they have much incentive to complain now, even if their lawyers are 100% sure that there is a violation of their copyright. Instead they can just wait for Canonical to hang themselves, then sue them and their customers for the fair market value plus damages. (Maybe they'll offer Canonical's customers a good deal when they switch to Oracle Linux.)

dragonwriter 11y ago
Sue them for what? No one anywhere has suggested even a theory where Oracle's license on ZFS is violated.
- Ded7xSEoPKYNsDd 11y ago
  I thought TFA argues releasing a binary combining code under GPL 2 and CDDL 1 violates both of those licenses. But my point was: IF Oracle thinks their copyright is being violated, they wouldn't complain NOW. If they don't think so, they wouldn't complain either. So Oracle staying silent shouldn't be taken as a signal of their opinion on the matter.
  - cyphar 11y ago
    Canonical doesn't ship binaries containing ZFS+Linux. They ship the source code with scripts that build and insert it into the running kernel.
    - jepler 11y ago
      I believe that had been the case for some time, but it will no longer be true with the next Ubuntu release. (that is why everyone is particularly concerned about the issue right now) If you look at the .diff.gz associated with Xenial's kernel, linked from http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/linux-image-4.4.0-7-generic http://packages.ubuntu.com/xenial/linux-image-4.4.0-7-generi... you will see that this diff adds spl/ and zfs/ directories to the linux source tree. I believe, but don't know for certain because the "[list of files]" links are all broken at the time I write this message, that zfs.ko is in the same binary .deb package as the GPL'd kernel. That's not to say that mere aggregation is enough to trigger the portions of the GPL that also require a derived work in the copyright sense, but the Conservancy post we started with lays out in detail their view: A particular zfs.ko does nothing until it is linked with a matching version of the Linux kernel; the fact that the linking is dynamic and not static is irrelevant in their analysis.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

gillianseed 11y ago

>The other reply [1] nails the real point: No one at Oracle is complaining. Canonical hasn't shipped their distro with the ZFS kernel module yet. My impression of Oracle is that they let their lawsuits do the talking. >You also ignore the binary kernel object point: Nvidia's drivers are completely proprietary and closed source. How is that in any way less of a violation? AFAIK NVidia's drivers are not a default part of any distribution (including Ubuntu from Canonical) and has to be enabled/installed explicitly by the end user, meanwhile Canonical said they were going to make the ZFS kernel module part of their default distribution.