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Yes, happily the ZFS license (CDDL) and (star)BSD licenses seem to be compatible. Yay for the BSDs of the world! Unfortunately, most of the OSS/Free Software w

Yes, happily the ZFS license (CDDL) and (star)BSD licenses seem to be compatible. Yay for the BSDs of the world! Unfortunately, most of the OSS/Free Software world is running a Linux kernel whose license (GPLv2) isn't compatible with the CDDL according to current thinking by most of the people who know about these things. End of story, AFAICT. (I mean there's a theoretical possibility of relicensing the Linux kernel, but given the contributor profile it's probably impossible in any practical sense. AFAICT it would be far more likely/practical for ZFS to be re-licensed under a GPL-compatible license if only the corporate overlords were so inclined.) EDIT: Just a minor edit: I didn't mean that it's "unfortunate" that most of the OSS/Free Software world is running Linux. It works pretty damn well. My "unfortunately" remark was merely about the fact that licenses may be (or are) incompatible.

noinsight 11y ago
> it would be far more likely/practical for ZFS to be re-licensed under a GPL-compatible license if only the corporate overlords were so inclined. I feel like that ship has sailed since there's Btrfs for Linux too - which also originated at Oracle. I've always been curious why they kept working on Btrfs after acquiring Sun since they could've just relicensed ZFS to GPL/whatever. Then again, I've also always been curious why people still keep glamoring over ZFS for Linux when Btrfs exists now, which, as far as I understand, is comparable to ZFS and a fresh implementation (for what that's worth).
- the_ancient 11y ago
  Because ZFS is 100000000000X better than btrfs... the ZFS commands are more logical, and better designed The ZFS FileSystem is truely enterprise ready... btrfs is atleast 5 years away from being production ready btrfs has all kinds of bugs and issues. zfs did not hold to legacy conventions, they looked at filesystems in a differnet way. btrfs attempts to hold on the traditional filesystem methodology and shoehorn more modern ideas in to that traditional framework, and IMO it does not work at all the zfs and zpool commands are brilliant, intuitive, and easy to use. The btrfs command structure is complicated, non-intuitive, and antiquated
- gherkin0 11y ago
  > Then again, I've also always been curious why people still keep glamoring over ZFS for Linux when Btrfs exists now, which, as far as I understand, is comparable to ZFS and a fresh implementation (for what that's worth). My understanding is that Btrfs is still considered less stable than ZFS, or at least has been fairly recently.
- lomnakkus 11y ago
  > I feel like that ship has sailed since there's Btrfs for Linux too - which also originated at Oracle. Unfortunately, I think you may be right. It's just sad -- because probably nobody who's anyone at Oracle cares and/or understands. > Then again, I've also always been curious why people still keep glamoring over ZFS for Linux when Btrfs exists now, which, as far as I understand, is comparable to ZFS and a fresh implementation (for what that's worth). It is mostly comparable feature-wise, it's just that it hasn't achieved anywhere near the same level of stability for anything other than single-device usage. (At least that's my understanding from following the mailing list for years and years.)
- usefulcat 11y ago
  Bear in mind that many of those who are interested in ZFS are interested in it specifically because they care a lot about not losing data. With that in mind, let's see what the btrfs wiki has to say about the stability of btrfs: "Is btrfs stable? Short answer: Maybe." https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/FAQ#Is_btrfs_stable.3F https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/FAQ#Is_btrfs_stable.... Maybe it's just me, but I'm more than a little concerned by the fact that btrfs has been in development for over 8 years and still doesn't seem to be considered safe to use for storing anything I really care about.
- Sanddancer 11y ago
  ZFS has a considerable number of very useful features that Btrfs doesn't have. For example, under ZFS, you can delegate administration of a filesystem (subvolume in Btrfs terms) to a normal user. In doing so, you can, for example, set up each user's home directory as its own subvolume, allowing for per-account snapshots, and their own sets of subvolumes which can have differing properties as-needed. ZFS also has support in-driver for sharing volumes, which means nfs shares, and smb shares (unfortunately not under FreeBSD yet) work natively with the filesystem, and can be exported there, instead of needing to muck around with config files and then kicking things in the proper order. Btrfs is still Not There Yet for a lot of the advantages ZFS has over traditional filesystems. It has a some, and some are half-baked, like its offline deduplication, but is still missing a considerable number. Maybe in five years Btrfs will catch up, but it's not here now. Rearding licensing, the Linux kernel devs could also relicense to allow for cddl co-existence. Unfortunately, the petulance from such groups as the SFLC makes that very unlikely.
- michaelmrose 11y ago
  It is comparable in that they are both filesystems... Supposedly the situation has been improving but at least as of months ago compared to zfs performance was horrible, features were lacking, and likelihood of data loss was a lot higher.
bch 11y ago
> Unfortunately, most of the OSS/Free Software world is running a Linux kernel whose license (GPLv2) isn't compatible with the CDDL according to current thinking by most of the people who know about these things. This[0] is one of the more interesting reviews of this I've seen in a long time, including what seems like a footnote about dtrace at the end that I thought was a shocker. [0] https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2016/linux-kernel-cddl.html https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2016/linux-kernel-cddl...
- hackcasual 11y ago
  Yeah, anyone saying this is a cut and dry matter doesn't really have a true appreciation for how murky legal waters can get.
- shiftoutbox 11y ago
  Why must it be relicensed . Why not let it just be . Can the Linux people stop trying to tell everyone that everything needs to be gpl'ed or gpl compatible. It's like a 3 year old wining about how they can't get a second cookie .
  - lomnakkus 11y ago
    I don't think you appreciate the complexities of copyright law as codified in the Berne convention, etc. (I hate it too, but that's no excuse to just ignore it.) EDIT: Sorry, I accidentally downvoted you. Apologies.
    - shiftoutbox 11y ago
      I work with a guy who has cddl'd his project . He likes the license ; I don't nag him to change it to an isc license . He has his reasons for the cddl, I might not agree with all of it but I am great full he open sourced it . If sun /oracle didn't open source zfs or dtrace we would be all be using Solaris and paying to use it . So if FreeBSD , NetBSD , illumos have a properly compatable licenses for zfs . Embrace that ; if you don't want to, check out dragonflybsd and hammerfs, look at btree on Linux , check out openbfs on haiku . I can't stress this enough Canonical is a shitty company who needs to make waves to stay relevant . I don't know why anyone uses their crap . Wait I remember they are a commercial company with a marketing department who gets paid to polish that turd . What was so bad about Debian ? If you don't like Debian Why not give a a bsd a try . Hell why not just try Smart os and a lx-branded zone . You get zfs , dtrace , and all of the ful of full Linux comparability .
corv 11y ago
Or one could simply use FreeBSD because even if ZFS was relicensed the integration of ZFS throughout the Linux ecosystem is nowhere near FreeBSD's.
- protomyth 11y ago
  PC-BSD has made a real effort to make that integration user facing in a nice UI.
trollian 11y ago
But freebsd with zfs isn't BSD licensed. In many ways it's under a much more restrictive license than Linux.

noinsight 11y ago

> it would be far more likely/practical for ZFS to be re-licensed under a GPL-compatible license if only the corporate overlords were so inclined. I feel like that ship has sailed since there's Btrfs for Linux too - which also originated at Oracle. I've always been curious why they kept working on Btrfs after acquiring Sun since they could've just relicensed ZFS to GPL/whatever. Then again, I've also always been curious why people still keep glamoring over ZFS for Linux when Btrfs exists now, which, as far as I understand, is comparable to ZFS and a fresh implementation (for what that's worth).

the_ancient 11y ago
Because ZFS is 100000000000X better than btrfs... the ZFS commands are more logical, and better designed The ZFS FileSystem is truely enterprise ready... btrfs is atleast 5 years away from being production ready btrfs has all kinds of bugs and issues. zfs did not hold to legacy conventions, they looked at filesystems in a differnet way. btrfs attempts to hold on the traditional filesystem methodology and shoehorn more modern ideas in to that traditional framework, and IMO it does not work at all the zfs and zpool commands are brilliant, intuitive, and easy to use. The btrfs command structure is complicated, non-intuitive, and antiquated
gherkin0 11y ago
> Then again, I've also always been curious why people still keep glamoring over ZFS for Linux when Btrfs exists now, which, as far as I understand, is comparable to ZFS and a fresh implementation (for what that's worth). My understanding is that Btrfs is still considered less stable than ZFS, or at least has been fairly recently.
lomnakkus 11y ago
> I feel like that ship has sailed since there's Btrfs for Linux too - which also originated at Oracle. Unfortunately, I think you may be right. It's just sad -- because probably nobody who's anyone at Oracle cares and/or understands. > Then again, I've also always been curious why people still keep glamoring over ZFS for Linux when Btrfs exists now, which, as far as I understand, is comparable to ZFS and a fresh implementation (for what that's worth). It is mostly comparable feature-wise, it's just that it hasn't achieved anywhere near the same level of stability for anything other than single-device usage. (At least that's my understanding from following the mailing list for years and years.)
usefulcat 11y ago
Bear in mind that many of those who are interested in ZFS are interested in it specifically because they care a lot about not losing data. With that in mind, let's see what the btrfs wiki has to say about the stability of btrfs: "Is btrfs stable? Short answer: Maybe." https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/FAQ#Is_btrfs_stable.3F https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/FAQ#Is_btrfs_stable.... Maybe it's just me, but I'm more than a little concerned by the fact that btrfs has been in development for over 8 years and still doesn't seem to be considered safe to use for storing anything I really care about.
Sanddancer 11y ago
ZFS has a considerable number of very useful features that Btrfs doesn't have. For example, under ZFS, you can delegate administration of a filesystem (subvolume in Btrfs terms) to a normal user. In doing so, you can, for example, set up each user's home directory as its own subvolume, allowing for per-account snapshots, and their own sets of subvolumes which can have differing properties as-needed. ZFS also has support in-driver for sharing volumes, which means nfs shares, and smb shares (unfortunately not under FreeBSD yet) work natively with the filesystem, and can be exported there, instead of needing to muck around with config files and then kicking things in the proper order. Btrfs is still Not There Yet for a lot of the advantages ZFS has over traditional filesystems. It has a some, and some are half-baked, like its offline deduplication, but is still missing a considerable number. Maybe in five years Btrfs will catch up, but it's not here now. Rearding licensing, the Linux kernel devs could also relicense to allow for cddl co-existence. Unfortunately, the petulance from such groups as the SFLC makes that very unlikely.
michaelmrose 11y ago
It is comparable in that they are both filesystems... Supposedly the situation has been improving but at least as of months ago compared to zfs performance was horrible, features were lacking, and likelihood of data loss was a lot higher.

bch 11y ago

> Unfortunately, most of the OSS/Free Software world is running a Linux kernel whose license (GPLv2) isn't compatible with the CDDL according to current thinking by most of the people who know about these things. This[0] is one of the more interesting reviews of this I've seen in a long time, including what seems like a footnote about dtrace at the end that I thought was a shocker. [0] https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2016/linux-kernel-cddl.html https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2016/linux-kernel-cddl...

hackcasual 11y ago
Yeah, anyone saying this is a cut and dry matter doesn't really have a true appreciation for how murky legal waters can get.
shiftoutbox 11y ago
Why must it be relicensed . Why not let it just be . Can the Linux people stop trying to tell everyone that everything needs to be gpl'ed or gpl compatible. It's like a 3 year old wining about how they can't get a second cookie .
- lomnakkus 11y ago
  I don't think you appreciate the complexities of copyright law as codified in the Berne convention, etc. (I hate it too, but that's no excuse to just ignore it.) EDIT: Sorry, I accidentally downvoted you. Apologies.
  - shiftoutbox 11y ago
    I work with a guy who has cddl'd his project . He likes the license ; I don't nag him to change it to an isc license . He has his reasons for the cddl, I might not agree with all of it but I am great full he open sourced it . If sun /oracle didn't open source zfs or dtrace we would be all be using Solaris and paying to use it . So if FreeBSD , NetBSD , illumos have a properly compatable licenses for zfs . Embrace that ; if you don't want to, check out dragonflybsd and hammerfs, look at btree on Linux , check out openbfs on haiku . I can't stress this enough Canonical is a shitty company who needs to make waves to stay relevant . I don't know why anyone uses their crap . Wait I remember they are a commercial company with a marketing department who gets paid to polish that turd . What was so bad about Debian ? If you don't like Debian Why not give a a bsd a try . Hell why not just try Smart os and a lx-branded zone . You get zfs , dtrace , and all of the ful of full Linux comparability .

corv 11y ago

Or one could simply use FreeBSD because even if ZFS was relicensed the integration of ZFS throughout the Linux ecosystem is nowhere near FreeBSD's.

protomyth 11y ago
PC-BSD has made a real effort to make that integration user facing in a nice UI.

trollian 11y ago

But freebsd with zfs isn't BSD licensed. In many ways it's under a much more restrictive license than Linux.