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The original ZFS engineers now work on OpenZFS, and have for almost a decade. While the base is "owned" by Oracle, most of the innovation in ZFS (and other Sola

by cyphar 9y ago

The original ZFS engineers now work on OpenZFS, and have for almost a decade. While the base is "owned" by Oracle, most of the innovation in ZFS (and other Solaris technologies) have been done in illumos and are owned by their respective authors. While I feel empathy for the engineers who lost their jobs, modern Solaris innovation hasn't been funded by Oracle since 2010 and the OpenSolaris debacle.

jedberg 9y ago
The IP has enough shadow over it that it precludes Apple from using ZFS, even though all the tech was developed outside. That's the main issue. Things are murky and is scares people.
- ece 9y ago
  This seems like FUD, people have analyzed the licensing, and the openzfs project is independent of any company. Would you say OpenJDK was murky? I don't think so. https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/are-gplv2-and-cddl-incompatible/ https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/are-gplv2-and-cddl-incomp...
- snw 9y ago
  Whatever reasons apple had for not using ZFS at that time wasn't some "IP shadow" as the CDDL includes a patent grant. OpenZFS is open source and there is nothing murky or scary about it.
  - yellowapple 9y ago
    Java is open-source, too, yet we still have Oracle trying to shake money out of its users.
    - ece 9y ago
      And failing. A patent troll is a patent troll. There is nothing stopping Linux from mainlining ZFS at the source level apart from kernel developers reluctance to give into "layering violations." Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong. To wit: I am not sure if linking and terms of binary distribution matter after sources have merged for open source projects. If you have the source code and have right to modify, merge and distribute it, arguing about static or dynamic linking and binary distribution is like arguing about the color of your car door after the car has been made. It's inconsequential compared to amount of IP and resources put into the source code, and easily changed by any user (to a different architecture lets say). Modifying has no meaning when it comes to binaries. But it's core to copyleft and open source. You would only care about binary licensing if you were a closed source product, and had to have ultimate control. If somebody had complete copyright over a ZFS binary, they could say how it can be used or not. The way an EULA would restrict you. Since no such copyright holder or binary exists for ZFS, and only source does, I don't think most people would stop collaboration in source code once the licenses are compatible. Linking exceptions are for those who do own all of the copyrights and want to distribute along side open source software, and having a distinction otherwise in the open source world adds to license proliferation and makes no sense. ZFS doesn't have a single copyright holder acting on it's behalf, it has lost certain privileges because of this. I'm sure Oracle would be troll about this too, but they would probably be wrong given FreeBSD and OpenZFS. I do think the GPLv3 fails a little bit because of the same argument. But I'm no lawyer.
      - belorn 9y ago
        I doubt (given what I heard from lawyers on the topic) that the legal system cares if a work has static or dynamic linking technology. What matters are the legal concepts which previous legal cases have been settled on. Intent by everyone involved such as the author, the accused and the law writer. If the author intended that the work is used in one way, and the accused knew this but decided to go against it, then that carries a lot of weight. Similar, if the law writer intended the law to address a specific situation, that also carries weight. Precedence from cases that involve derivate work. There is a fuzzy line when two works merge to create a third. Music has a large legal history, parts which are contradicting itself. And last there is the law itself. Modifying for example is a explicit exclusive right in some places (such as the US). One case involved a person who bought a painting, cut it down into squares, and rearranged them into a mosaic version. The painter sued and won the case, arguing exclusive right to create modifications. If something is binary or source code should irrelevant to the question about if the "work" has been modified based on what the author originally created.
        ece 9y ago
        I think we know what Sun wanted, they wanted to make money from Opensolaris and ZFS by building a community around it and selling services and products around it. After a decade, all that's left now is the source code, and if Oracle wants to wait until ZFS becomes bigger to sue Canonical or Netgear, well, that shows their intentions as well. As this timeline and some Googling shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenZFS#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenZFS#History Sun did work in good faith with Apple, and the Linux community to get them to adopt ZFS, unsuccessfully (successfully with FreeBSD). Additionally, the fact that Sun did successfully open source quite a few things (virtualbox, jenkins, openam, solaris, staroffice, netbeans, etc..) and relicense Java from SCSL to GPL, makes their intentions towards the open source community pretty clear. Yes, they wanted to make money, but they probably open sourced and created more open source communities than any other company in SV history. Now, about modification, any open source license listed by the FSF will grant modification rights to users. I don't think compiling is making a derivative work. It's like unfolding a chair to sit on it. It's just a part of normal usage of software, you can decompile a binary and learn from it, also normal usage. The compiler is a tool, like a screw driver or paint gun that will let you assemble a chair or paint your car. Reading and learning from source code is usage too. Modifying the actual source code would be a real modification and could be making ZFS work on an Raspberry Pi, which is allowed by open source. Given that Sun wanted ZFS to be widely adopted in open source, they adopted the CDDL to let people modify ZFS so it could be used by OSes other than Solaris. This is what the OpenZFS community enables, and is completely compatible with GNU/Linux or Apache open source norms. Oracle might come knocking for money, but that's not the history of Sun or current ZFS contributors, who are just out to make better software using the open source process. They would probably not disagree with what Netgear or Canonical did, and if they did, it would be on the OpenZFS mailing list and in a news story or two. It's not. You can't copy books and sell them, and I can understand you can't modify an original artwork and not affect the copyright owner's rights. You can correct an error in a book or claim inspiration from a painting to make another. You can't claim copyright if someone uses a binary in a VM when you didn't intend it. You can give others the right to modify source code, and ask that others do the same. That is open source and the GPL. OpenZFS, FreeBSD, have as much standing as Oracle, which is really none, to actually stop someone from porting ZFS to anything they would like and distribute it along side proprietary or open source software. https://youtu.be/6F9bscdqRpo?t=5m40s https://youtu.be/6F9bscdqRpo?t=5m40s
- ece 9y ago
  You're wrong, and Apple made a mistake: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/zfs-the-other-new-apple-file-system-that-almost-was-until-it-wasnt/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/zfs-the-other-new-ap... From the article: "Finally, and perhaps most significantly, personal egos and NIH (not invented here) syndrome certainly played a part. I'm told by folks who worked at Apple at the time that certain leads and managers preferred to build their own stuff rather than adopting external technology, even technology that was best of breed. They pitched their own project, an Apple project that would bring modern filesystem technologies to Mac OS X. The design center for ZFS was servers, not laptops—and certainly not phones, tablets, and watches—and the argument was likely that it would be better to start from scratch than adapt ZFS. Combined with the uncertainty above and, I'm told, no shortage of political savvy, the anti-ZFS arguments carried the day. Licensing FUD was thrown into the mix; even today folks at Apple see the ZFS license as nefarious and toxic in some way, whereas the DTrace license works just fine for them. Note that both use the same license with the same grants and same restrictions." It's still not too late for Linux to merge ZFS: https://youtu.be/6F9bscdqRpo?t=5m14s https://youtu.be/6F9bscdqRpo?t=5m14s
- cyphar 9y ago
  That's FUD. Apple actually did have a ZFS port for the Mac they were working on. And they successfully ported DTrace way back when as well (you can still use it today). I expect that the lawyers wouldn't have allowed anyone to work on a port of a project with an "IP shadow". The most likely reasons were probably either NIH, or worries about the greedy resource requirements of ZFS.

by cyphar 9y ago

jedberg 9y ago

The IP has enough shadow over it that it precludes Apple from using ZFS, even though all the tech was developed outside. That's the main issue. Things are murky and is scares people.

ece 9y ago
This seems like FUD, people have analyzed the licensing, and the openzfs project is independent of any company. Would you say OpenJDK was murky? I don't think so. https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/are-gplv2-and-cddl-incompatible/ https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/are-gplv2-and-cddl-incomp...
snw 9y ago
Whatever reasons apple had for not using ZFS at that time wasn't some "IP shadow" as the CDDL includes a patent grant. OpenZFS is open source and there is nothing murky or scary about it.
- yellowapple 9y ago
  Java is open-source, too, yet we still have Oracle trying to shake money out of its users.
  - ece 9y ago
    And failing. A patent troll is a patent troll. There is nothing stopping Linux from mainlining ZFS at the source level apart from kernel developers reluctance to give into "layering violations." Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong. To wit: I am not sure if linking and terms of binary distribution matter after sources have merged for open source projects. If you have the source code and have right to modify, merge and distribute it, arguing about static or dynamic linking and binary distribution is like arguing about the color of your car door after the car has been made. It's inconsequential compared to amount of IP and resources put into the source code, and easily changed by any user (to a different architecture lets say). Modifying has no meaning when it comes to binaries. But it's core to copyleft and open source. You would only care about binary licensing if you were a closed source product, and had to have ultimate control. If somebody had complete copyright over a ZFS binary, they could say how it can be used or not. The way an EULA would restrict you. Since no such copyright holder or binary exists for ZFS, and only source does, I don't think most people would stop collaboration in source code once the licenses are compatible. Linking exceptions are for those who do own all of the copyrights and want to distribute along side open source software, and having a distinction otherwise in the open source world adds to license proliferation and makes no sense. ZFS doesn't have a single copyright holder acting on it's behalf, it has lost certain privileges because of this. I'm sure Oracle would be troll about this too, but they would probably be wrong given FreeBSD and OpenZFS. I do think the GPLv3 fails a little bit because of the same argument. But I'm no lawyer.
    - belorn 9y ago
      I doubt (given what I heard from lawyers on the topic) that the legal system cares if a work has static or dynamic linking technology. What matters are the legal concepts which previous legal cases have been settled on. Intent by everyone involved such as the author, the accused and the law writer. If the author intended that the work is used in one way, and the accused knew this but decided to go against it, then that carries a lot of weight. Similar, if the law writer intended the law to address a specific situation, that also carries weight. Precedence from cases that involve derivate work. There is a fuzzy line when two works merge to create a third. Music has a large legal history, parts which are contradicting itself. And last there is the law itself. Modifying for example is a explicit exclusive right in some places (such as the US). One case involved a person who bought a painting, cut it down into squares, and rearranged them into a mosaic version. The painter sued and won the case, arguing exclusive right to create modifications. If something is binary or source code should irrelevant to the question about if the "work" has been modified based on what the author originally created.
      - ece 9y ago
        I think we know what Sun wanted, they wanted to make money from Opensolaris and ZFS by building a community around it and selling services and products around it. After a decade, all that's left now is the source code, and if Oracle wants to wait until ZFS becomes bigger to sue Canonical or Netgear, well, that shows their intentions as well. As this timeline and some Googling shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenZFS#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenZFS#History Sun did work in good faith with Apple, and the Linux community to get them to adopt ZFS, unsuccessfully (successfully with FreeBSD). Additionally, the fact that Sun did successfully open source quite a few things (virtualbox, jenkins, openam, solaris, staroffice, netbeans, etc..) and relicense Java from SCSL to GPL, makes their intentions towards the open source community pretty clear. Yes, they wanted to make money, but they probably open sourced and created more open source communities than any other company in SV history. Now, about modification, any open source license listed by the FSF will grant modification rights to users. I don't think compiling is making a derivative work. It's like unfolding a chair to sit on it. It's just a part of normal usage of software, you can decompile a binary and learn from it, also normal usage. The compiler is a tool, like a screw driver or paint gun that will let you assemble a chair or paint your car. Reading and learning from source code is usage too. Modifying the actual source code would be a real modification and could be making ZFS work on an Raspberry Pi, which is allowed by open source. Given that Sun wanted ZFS to be widely adopted in open source, they adopted the CDDL to let people modify ZFS so it could be used by OSes other than Solaris. This is what the OpenZFS community enables, and is completely compatible with GNU/Linux or Apache open source norms. Oracle might come knocking for money, but that's not the history of Sun or current ZFS contributors, who are just out to make better software using the open source process. They would probably not disagree with what Netgear or Canonical did, and if they did, it would be on the OpenZFS mailing list and in a news story or two. It's not. You can't copy books and sell them, and I can understand you can't modify an original artwork and not affect the copyright owner's rights. You can correct an error in a book or claim inspiration from a painting to make another. You can't claim copyright if someone uses a binary in a VM when you didn't intend it. You can give others the right to modify source code, and ask that others do the same. That is open source and the GPL. OpenZFS, FreeBSD, have as much standing as Oracle, which is really none, to actually stop someone from porting ZFS to anything they would like and distribute it along side proprietary or open source software. https://youtu.be/6F9bscdqRpo?t=5m40s https://youtu.be/6F9bscdqRpo?t=5m40s
ece 9y ago
You're wrong, and Apple made a mistake: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/zfs-the-other-new-apple-file-system-that-almost-was-until-it-wasnt/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/06/zfs-the-other-new-ap... From the article: "Finally, and perhaps most significantly, personal egos and NIH (not invented here) syndrome certainly played a part. I'm told by folks who worked at Apple at the time that certain leads and managers preferred to build their own stuff rather than adopting external technology, even technology that was best of breed. They pitched their own project, an Apple project that would bring modern filesystem technologies to Mac OS X. The design center for ZFS was servers, not laptops—and certainly not phones, tablets, and watches—and the argument was likely that it would be better to start from scratch than adapt ZFS. Combined with the uncertainty above and, I'm told, no shortage of political savvy, the anti-ZFS arguments carried the day. Licensing FUD was thrown into the mix; even today folks at Apple see the ZFS license as nefarious and toxic in some way, whereas the DTrace license works just fine for them. Note that both use the same license with the same grants and same restrictions." It's still not too late for Linux to merge ZFS: https://youtu.be/6F9bscdqRpo?t=5m14s https://youtu.be/6F9bscdqRpo?t=5m14s
cyphar 9y ago
That's FUD. Apple actually did have a ZFS port for the Mac they were working on. And they successfully ported DTrace way back when as well (you can still use it today). I expect that the lawyers wouldn't have allowed anyone to work on a port of a project with an "IP shadow". The most likely reasons were probably either NIH, or worries about the greedy resource requirements of ZFS.