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And the only pertinent clause would be in the GPL (the CDDL doesn't care), regarding if ZFS were a derivative work of Linux, which it plainly is not. All this

And the only pertinent clause would be in the GPL (the CDDL doesn't care), regarding if ZFS were a derivative work of Linux, which it plainly is not. All this "GPL and CDDL are incompatible!" is nonsense.

wmf 9y ago
But is the Ubuntu ISO a derivative work of Linux?
- jdboyd 9y ago
  The binary kernel in the ISO seems to certainly be a derivative work of Linux, but only the copyright owners whose code is included in that binary kernel would have standing to sue about this. That means parties like Linus Torvalds, Intel, LSI, and many other companies and individuals. And clearly so far those copyright holders haven't seen fit to sue about it. It seems fair to anticipate no law suits since as far as I'm aware kernel developers have never filed a law suit against companies committing really blatant infringement. Most of the action there seemed to come from the BusyBox project.
bsder 9y ago
It is not nonsense, and Sun went out of its way to make sure that the CDDL and GPL are incompatible. So, all the ZFS on Linux users are okay until Oracle sees money in suing them.
- chriswarbo 9y ago
  The link above seems to say that that the GPLv3 is compatible. Linux won't(/can't) be changing from GPLv2 any time soon though. I don't know about Sun's intentions.
- l1ambda 9y ago
  > Sun went out of its way to make sure that the CDDL and GPL are incompatible. What evidence is there of this?
  - wmf 9y ago
    Sun could have written the CDDL to be GPL-compatible yet they chose not to and they generally refused to explain why. I suspect that they did not want to see OpenSolaris become an "organ donor" for Linux but they also didn't want to appear weak by saying so in public. The closest I can find is where Simon Phipps said "to be GPL compatible you actually have to be willing to have your license discarded and replaced with the GPL. It's more a Borg-like assimilation than compatibility, in my view, and pretty undesirable as it results in future code enrichment being accumulated in some other code commons." https://web.archive.org/web/20050420234857/http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/webmink/20050415#failed_as_in_succeeded_wildly https://web.archive.org/web/20050420234857/http://blogs.sun....
chriswarbo 9y ago
From reading that link, especially the Torvalds quote, it seems like all Linux kernel modules have always counted as derivative works, although Torvalds once told the AFS devs that he wasn't sure in their particular case, and he personally didn't think that theirs was a derivative work. That seems to strongly contradict your "it plainly is not" claim. As for GPLv2/CDDL incompatibility being "nonsense", I suggest you re-read the above. They are incompatible. The questions are: - How much do the kernel devs care? They're the only ones in a position to complain, since as you say it's the GPL on their code being violated. The answer seems to be "not much", since CDDL is "in the spirit" of the GPL. - How much would the legal system care if a complaint was made? As that SFLC link says, probably "not much", since it seems hard to argue that much/any physical or economic damage has been done, or any malicious intent (again, it preserves the "spirit") - How much do Canonical care about the damage of a possible complaint? Clearly not enough to stop them going ahead. - How much do users care about Canonical's risk-taking? Most users probably don't care. I can imagine some 'enterprise level' (potential) customers who may run at the sight of "potential lawsuit", despite the "potential" seeming to be low, and the fallout from such a lawsuit being pretty insignificant (as SFLC says, since there's no malicious intent, it would probably just require a switch to Debian's model going forward, which would cause a little disruption but no real damage)

wmf 9y ago

But is the Ubuntu ISO a derivative work of Linux?

jdboyd 9y ago
The binary kernel in the ISO seems to certainly be a derivative work of Linux, but only the copyright owners whose code is included in that binary kernel would have standing to sue about this. That means parties like Linus Torvalds, Intel, LSI, and many other companies and individuals. And clearly so far those copyright holders haven't seen fit to sue about it. It seems fair to anticipate no law suits since as far as I'm aware kernel developers have never filed a law suit against companies committing really blatant infringement. Most of the action there seemed to come from the BusyBox project.

bsder 9y ago

It is not nonsense, and Sun went out of its way to make sure that the CDDL and GPL are incompatible. So, all the ZFS on Linux users are okay until Oracle sees money in suing them.

chriswarbo 9y ago
The link above seems to say that that the GPLv3 is compatible. Linux won't(/can't) be changing from GPLv2 any time soon though. I don't know about Sun's intentions.
l1ambda 9y ago
> Sun went out of its way to make sure that the CDDL and GPL are incompatible. What evidence is there of this?
- wmf 9y ago
  Sun could have written the CDDL to be GPL-compatible yet they chose not to and they generally refused to explain why. I suspect that they did not want to see OpenSolaris become an "organ donor" for Linux but they also didn't want to appear weak by saying so in public. The closest I can find is where Simon Phipps said "to be GPL compatible you actually have to be willing to have your license discarded and replaced with the GPL. It's more a Borg-like assimilation than compatibility, in my view, and pretty undesirable as it results in future code enrichment being accumulated in some other code commons." https://web.archive.org/web/20050420234857/http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/webmink/20050415#failed_as_in_succeeded_wildly https://web.archive.org/web/20050420234857/http://blogs.sun....

chriswarbo 9y ago

From reading that link, especially the Torvalds quote, it seems like all Linux kernel modules have always counted as derivative works, although Torvalds once told the AFS devs that he wasn't sure in their particular case, and he personally didn't think that theirs was a derivative work. That seems to strongly contradict your "it plainly is not" claim. As for GPLv2/CDDL incompatibility being "nonsense", I suggest you re-read the above. They are incompatible. The questions are: - How much do the kernel devs care? They're the only ones in a position to complain, since as you say it's the GPL on their code being violated. The answer seems to be "not much", since CDDL is "in the spirit" of the GPL. - How much would the legal system care if a complaint was made? As that SFLC link says, probably "not much", since it seems hard to argue that much/any physical or economic damage has been done, or any malicious intent (again, it preserves the "spirit") - How much do Canonical care about the damage of a possible complaint? Clearly not enough to stop them going ahead. - How much do users care about Canonical's risk-taking? Most users probably don't care. I can imagine some 'enterprise level' (potential) customers who may run at the sight of "potential lawsuit", despite the "potential" seeming to be low, and the fallout from such a lawsuit being pretty insignificant (as SFLC says, since there's no malicious intent, it would probably just require a switch to Debian's model going forward, which would cause a little disruption but no real damage)