6 ms·

Maybe more people would adopt it if they changed the license?

by 43224gg252 9y ago

icebraining 9y ago
Who is "they"?
- betaby 9y ago
  I guess only Oracle can change the license, since they own original ZFS now.
  - 4ad 9y ago
    Oracle can't change the license alone. While Oracle is the majority copyright holder, some parts are copyrighted by other people and/or organisations. In fact, this was one of the building principles of the CDDL license. This ZFS on Linux project mentioned in the article doesn't use the current Oracle ZFS code (which is proprietary), but rather the OpenZFS code which has had very significant changes that happened post-Oracle fork by parties other than Oracle.
    - mjg59 9y ago
      Almost all of ZoL is under "CDDL 1.0 or later". Oracle could release a new version of CDDL that explicitly made the ZoL project GPL compatible.
      - cthalupa 9y ago
        I'm not sure you understand the situation, which is surprising with how much time you spend talking about it - is this willful? - Oracle (And Sun before them) do not hold all of the copyrights involved. Some of them are held by third parties. The CDDL was written to be as permissive as possible within the boundaries they are held to by these third parties. It is impossible for Oracle to release a version of the license that is GPL compatible without completely removing all of these third party components they do not hold the copyright to.
        cyphar 9y ago
        I would recommend reading section 4 of the CDDL (it's actually very similar to section 6 of the MPL 1.1 because that's what it was based on). In particular, it has an or-any-later version clause that is opt-out. This means that if Oracle decided to release CDDL 2.0 tomorrow that was GPL-compatible, anyone with CDDL 1.0 licensed (without the opt-out) codebases could then use it in conjunction with GPL code (by exercising the upgrade path). From memory, the original ZFS codebase (and also OpenZFS) doesn't exercise the opt-out -- which means that they can be switched this way. [This is basically how you would take LGPLv2 code and put it into an AGPLv3 codebase (LGPLv2 -> GPLv2+ -> GPLv3+ -> AGPLv3+).] I believe that's what they were trying to say. I'm not a lawyer (as usual) but that was the opinion of the community a few years ago. Canonical decided to just "go for it" and see whether Oracle will sue them. We'll see what happens in the future.
        protomyth 9y ago
        The basic misunderstanding is that Oracle does not own the the copyright to all of OpenZFS. A lot of code in the OpenZFS code base is not under any sort of copyright assignment to Oracle. To change the license on the whole, you would need Oracle and all the contributors who have not done copyright assignments to agree to re-license their code.
        cyphar 9y ago
        I'm going to repeat this again. It's got nothing to do with copyright assignment. The license that the code is under (CDDL), by default, allows Oracle to provide newer versions that anyone can update their copy of the code to. It's effectively the same mechanism as MPL's update system, and also effectively the same as GPL's update mechanism. You can take a GPLv2-or-later codebase and redistribute it as GPLv3-or-later because the FSF has released GPLv3. Similarly, you can take a CDDL-1.0 codebase and redistribute it as CDDL-2.0 because the "or any later version" clause is implicit and opt-out. If you agree that GPLv2-or-later code (regardless of who owns the copyright) can be redistributed or combined with GPLv3-or-later code, then you agree with the basic point of what I'm saying. Obviously the specifics are different but the basic idea is the same. Seriously. Read section 4 of the CDDL[1]. It's only three short paragraphs. [1]: https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/blob/master/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE#L224 https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/blob/master/OPENSOLARIS.LI...
      - 4ad 9y ago
        > Almost all of ZoL is under "CDDL 1.0 or later" Actually no, it is not.
        mjg59 9y ago
        CDDL requires you to opt out of later versions. 9 files (out of 219) totaling 950 lines (out of over 190,000) in the ZoL kernel code claim to be 1.0 only. What definition of "Almost all" are you using?
      - qb45 9y ago
        > Oracle could release a new version of CDDL that explicitly made the ZoL project GPL compatible. By allowing ZFS-derived works to be licensed under GPL, I suppose. I wonder if they could do it without allowing for a GPL fork which would become unmergable to the upstream?
        cyphar 9y ago
        The problem would be similar to MIT or Apache licensing a project. It is very uncommon for someone to create a fork of an existing project _just_ to change the license. Most of the people working on OpenZFS are unlikely to just switch licenses, the net result would just be to allow dual-licensing under GPLv2 so you can use it in Linux.
        qb45 9y ago
        People working on OpenZFS are unlikely to switch licenses, but somebody (presumably a company) could possibly develop an "improved" fork to make money on it and refuse to contribute back, at which point Oracle would be forced to switch to GPL if the fork takes off. Dunno, it's just a hypothetical question and speculation whether there are any sensible reasons for Oracle to maintain status quo.
        mjg59 9y ago
        ZoL and upstream ZFS have already diverged significantly, since Oracle stopped releasing source several years ago.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
mrweasel 9y ago
Why would Oracle care about the number of people using ZFS on anything but Solaris?
- sqeaky 9y ago
  I don't know if they do care about these things, but it is conceivable they might care about: Selling support, increasing the amount of engineers familiar with their stuff, finding some new angle to try to sue Linux out of existence with or any one other goal that is furthered by the network effect.

Maybe more people would adopt it if they changed the license?

icebraining 9y ago

Who is "they"?

betaby 9y ago
I guess only Oracle can change the license, since they own original ZFS now.
- 4ad 9y ago
  Oracle can't change the license alone. While Oracle is the majority copyright holder, some parts are copyrighted by other people and/or organisations. In fact, this was one of the building principles of the CDDL license. This ZFS on Linux project mentioned in the article doesn't use the current Oracle ZFS code (which is proprietary), but rather the OpenZFS code which has had very significant changes that happened post-Oracle fork by parties other than Oracle.
  - mjg59 9y ago
    Almost all of ZoL is under "CDDL 1.0 or later". Oracle could release a new version of CDDL that explicitly made the ZoL project GPL compatible.
    - cthalupa 9y ago
      I'm not sure you understand the situation, which is surprising with how much time you spend talking about it - is this willful? - Oracle (And Sun before them) do not hold all of the copyrights involved. Some of them are held by third parties. The CDDL was written to be as permissive as possible within the boundaries they are held to by these third parties. It is impossible for Oracle to release a version of the license that is GPL compatible without completely removing all of these third party components they do not hold the copyright to.
      - cyphar 9y ago
        I would recommend reading section 4 of the CDDL (it's actually very similar to section 6 of the MPL 1.1 because that's what it was based on). In particular, it has an or-any-later version clause that is opt-out. This means that if Oracle decided to release CDDL 2.0 tomorrow that was GPL-compatible, anyone with CDDL 1.0 licensed (without the opt-out) codebases could then use it in conjunction with GPL code (by exercising the upgrade path). From memory, the original ZFS codebase (and also OpenZFS) doesn't exercise the opt-out -- which means that they can be switched this way. [This is basically how you would take LGPLv2 code and put it into an AGPLv3 codebase (LGPLv2 -> GPLv2+ -> GPLv3+ -> AGPLv3+).] I believe that's what they were trying to say. I'm not a lawyer (as usual) but that was the opinion of the community a few years ago. Canonical decided to just "go for it" and see whether Oracle will sue them. We'll see what happens in the future.
        protomyth 9y ago
        The basic misunderstanding is that Oracle does not own the the copyright to all of OpenZFS. A lot of code in the OpenZFS code base is not under any sort of copyright assignment to Oracle. To change the license on the whole, you would need Oracle and all the contributors who have not done copyright assignments to agree to re-license their code.
        cyphar 9y ago
        I'm going to repeat this again. It's got nothing to do with copyright assignment. The license that the code is under (CDDL), by default, allows Oracle to provide newer versions that anyone can update their copy of the code to. It's effectively the same mechanism as MPL's update system, and also effectively the same as GPL's update mechanism. You can take a GPLv2-or-later codebase and redistribute it as GPLv3-or-later because the FSF has released GPLv3. Similarly, you can take a CDDL-1.0 codebase and redistribute it as CDDL-2.0 because the "or any later version" clause is implicit and opt-out. If you agree that GPLv2-or-later code (regardless of who owns the copyright) can be redistributed or combined with GPLv3-or-later code, then you agree with the basic point of what I'm saying. Obviously the specifics are different but the basic idea is the same. Seriously. Read section 4 of the CDDL[1]. It's only three short paragraphs. [1]: https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/blob/master/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE#L224 https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/blob/master/OPENSOLARIS.LI...
    - 4ad 9y ago
      > Almost all of ZoL is under "CDDL 1.0 or later" Actually no, it is not.
      - mjg59 9y ago
        CDDL requires you to opt out of later versions. 9 files (out of 219) totaling 950 lines (out of over 190,000) in the ZoL kernel code claim to be 1.0 only. What definition of "Almost all" are you using?
    - qb45 9y ago
      > Oracle could release a new version of CDDL that explicitly made the ZoL project GPL compatible. By allowing ZFS-derived works to be licensed under GPL, I suppose. I wonder if they could do it without allowing for a GPL fork which would become unmergable to the upstream?
      - cyphar 9y ago
        The problem would be similar to MIT or Apache licensing a project. It is very uncommon for someone to create a fork of an existing project _just_ to change the license. Most of the people working on OpenZFS are unlikely to just switch licenses, the net result would just be to allow dual-licensing under GPLv2 so you can use it in Linux.
        qb45 9y ago
        People working on OpenZFS are unlikely to switch licenses, but somebody (presumably a company) could possibly develop an "improved" fork to make money on it and refuse to contribute back, at which point Oracle would be forced to switch to GPL if the fork takes off. Dunno, it's just a hypothetical question and speculation whether there are any sensible reasons for Oracle to maintain status quo.
        mjg59 9y ago
        ZoL and upstream ZFS have already diverged significantly, since Oracle stopped releasing source several years ago.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]

mrweasel 9y ago

Why would Oracle care about the number of people using ZFS on anything but Solaris?

sqeaky 9y ago
I don't know if they do care about these things, but it is conceivable they might care about: Selling support, increasing the amount of engineers familiar with their stuff, finding some new angle to try to sue Linux out of existence with or any one other goal that is furthered by the network effect.