8 ms·

The lack of ZFS is due to licensing.

by lomnakkus 10y ago

pantalaimon 10y ago
Ubuntu has it
- LukeShu 10y ago
  In violation of the license; probably.
  - cm3 10y ago
    AFAIK it's DKMS'ed just like Nvidia's kernel driver, so it's a user decision, just like media codec installation. Also, OpenZFS doesn't reuse kernel interfaces it's not allowed to, and that's why they carry their own crypto code now.
    - lathiat 10y ago
      It's actually not DKMS in 16.04 - crypto problem still applies though.
  - vonmoltke 10y ago
    How is the license being violated?
  - lomnakkus 10y ago
    Not necessarily. It's a run-time loaded module (as e.g. NVIDIA's graphics driver is) and 'taints' the kernel with CDDL, but since you -- the user -- aren't redistributing anything you are not breaking any copyright laws. EDIT: ... and neither are Ubuntu since what they're doing is "mere aggregation" (see the GPL).
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      If it's a run-time loaded module with an incompatible license, that means it isn't really something you want as your primary filesystem. For a storage volume, sure, but not your root filesystem. Honestly, this whole debacle could have been avoided if ZFS had been relicensed under some kind of compatible license like one of the BSD licenses.
      - lomnakkus 10y ago
        I agree completely[1]. I'm not sure Ubuntu Server actually even offers ZFS during the install on any volume, nevermind on the root FS. EDIT: [1] Well, now that I think about it... I don't agree that the skepticism should be based on licensing. I just think that ZFS-on-Linux is perhaps not mature enough quite yet and we do have off-site backups anyway, so we might as well try it if we're not doing anything absolutely 24/365-critical.
        rleigh 10y ago
        It's not supported by the installer (for 16.04), but you can do it by hand. It's poorly documented--there are several guides with contradictory advice--and it took me several attempts, but all the bits are there from GRUB to the initramfs and the main init. I got my workstation EFI booting with GRUB direct to root on ZFS a few weeks back; I can now "zfs send" whole system snapshots directly to my NAS. Once this is a single option in the installer like it is for LVM, it will become properly usable. Right now, it's for masochists who want to experiment only (for the rootfs). Regarding maturity, it's certainly not as well tested as on e.g. FreeBSD or Solaris, but it's been around for a good while at this point and I know a few people who have been running it for several years trouble free. I would certainly place it above Btrfs in the reliability stakes. The main limitations I've seen are cosmetic or Linux-specific; the zfs command is setuid root, which prevents delegating dataset admin to users (snapshot/send/recv your data, create your own subsidiary datasets etc.), Linux doesn't do NFSv4 ACLs in its VFS, and you can't transparently create NFS exports via zfs properties. None of these affect data integrity though. Not holding my breath waiting for NFSv4 ACLs, though it would certainly be a massively beneficial feature.
      - rleigh 10y ago
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    Like Ubuntu or not, they went on record saying that they had consulted with legal counsel who was heavily involved with open source and that they signed off. I'll take their word for it in good faith.

The lack of ZFS is due to licensing.

pantalaimon 10y ago

Ubuntu has it

LukeShu 10y ago
In violation of the license; probably.
- cm3 10y ago
  AFAIK it's DKMS'ed just like Nvidia's kernel driver, so it's a user decision, just like media codec installation. Also, OpenZFS doesn't reuse kernel interfaces it's not allowed to, and that's why they carry their own crypto code now.
  - lathiat 10y ago
    It's actually not DKMS in 16.04 - crypto problem still applies though.
- vonmoltke 10y ago
  How is the license being violated?
- lomnakkus 10y ago
  Not necessarily. It's a run-time loaded module (as e.g. NVIDIA's graphics driver is) and 'taints' the kernel with CDDL, but since you -- the user -- aren't redistributing anything you are not breaking any copyright laws. EDIT: ... and neither are Ubuntu since what they're doing is "mere aggregation" (see the GPL).
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    If it's a run-time loaded module with an incompatible license, that means it isn't really something you want as your primary filesystem. For a storage volume, sure, but not your root filesystem. Honestly, this whole debacle could have been avoided if ZFS had been relicensed under some kind of compatible license like one of the BSD licenses.
    - lomnakkus 10y ago
      I agree completely[1]. I'm not sure Ubuntu Server actually even offers ZFS during the install on any volume, nevermind on the root FS. EDIT: [1] Well, now that I think about it... I don't agree that the skepticism should be based on licensing. I just think that ZFS-on-Linux is perhaps not mature enough quite yet and we do have off-site backups anyway, so we might as well try it if we're not doing anything absolutely 24/365-critical.
      - rleigh 10y ago
        It's not supported by the installer (for 16.04), but you can do it by hand. It's poorly documented--there are several guides with contradictory advice--and it took me several attempts, but all the bits are there from GRUB to the initramfs and the main init. I got my workstation EFI booting with GRUB direct to root on ZFS a few weeks back; I can now "zfs send" whole system snapshots directly to my NAS. Once this is a single option in the installer like it is for LVM, it will become properly usable. Right now, it's for masochists who want to experiment only (for the rootfs). Regarding maturity, it's certainly not as well tested as on e.g. FreeBSD or Solaris, but it's been around for a good while at this point and I know a few people who have been running it for several years trouble free. I would certainly place it above Btrfs in the reliability stakes. The main limitations I've seen are cosmetic or Linux-specific; the zfs command is setuid root, which prevents delegating dataset admin to users (snapshot/send/recv your data, create your own subsidiary datasets etc.), Linux doesn't do NFSv4 ACLs in its VFS, and you can't transparently create NFS exports via zfs properties. None of these affect data integrity though. Not holding my breath waiting for NFSv4 ACLs, though it would certainly be a massively beneficial feature.
    - rleigh 10y ago
- FireBeyond 10y ago
  Like Ubuntu or not, they went on record saying that they had consulted with legal counsel who was heavily involved with open source and that they signed off. I'll take their word for it in good faith.