3 ms·

I think that as long as ZFS is licensed under CDDL [1], it will never be part of the Linux kernel proper. However, I'm not aware of any factor that prevents a d

I think that as long as ZFS is licensed under CDDL [1], it will never be part of the Linux kernel proper. However, I'm not aware of any factor that prevents a distribution from selecting ZFS as the default filesystem [2]. Perhaps it forces forking rescue disks onto a different, simpler filesystem type, which would add work for the distributions, but I can't think of a good list of drawbacks off the top of my head. It would be awesome if someone from one of the big distributions chimed in why ZFS is passed over, from their perspective, and perhaps the ZoL project might be able to help address their concerns. [1] https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/FAQ#licensing https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/wiki/FAQ#licensing [2] http://warpmech.com/?news=myth-busting-series-zfs-on-linux-has-license-problems http://warpmech.com/?news=myth-busting-series-zfs-on-linux-h...

rincebrain 9y ago
Yeah, Linux is never going to merge something CDDL into the mainline short of people achieving porcine aviation. Among other things, booting from ZFS on Linux can still be an experience with rough edges - I think one distro makes it easy to do from the installer (Slackware?), but otherwise you get to follow instructions which are opaque to someone not already familiar with running Linux, and debugging can be weird even if you are (the most common thing I've seen is the initramfs failing to import the pool and dropping to a rescue prompt, then succeeding at importing there - for a variety of reasons, usually not "the disks weren't spun up yet when it tried importing" any more). There's also the caveat that frequently ZFS gains feature flag support faster than GRUB2 gets updated to boot from those features, particularly since you can't just shove CDDL code into GRUB2, so you get to reimplement the wheel, and zpool upgrade/zpool set doesn't currently warn you that you're gonna make your pool unbootable if you turn on those features. I'm not a distro maintainer or anything of the sort, but between the above rough edges and concerns about redistributability of CDDL modules compiled against the Linux kernel and patents, I'm not surprised that people shy away from it unless $BIG_CUSTOMER throws a lot of money at them to make it a first-class citizen. (I'm also really curious, consequently, why Canonical is diving headfirst onto the wagon...)
- Spivak 9y ago
  > (I'm also really curious, consequently, why Canonical is diving headfirst onto the wagon...) I think it's a combination of being fans of ZFS and needing something to differentiate them from Red Hat.
greenhouse_gas 9y ago
ZFS as such will probably never make it (CDDL/GPL incompatibility - unless Oracle will relicense it). But what _could_ make it is a reverse-engineered "GPLed" ZFS (and, being that OpenZFS code is available, it shouldn't be that hard for a largeish team - someone just has to audit the code to make sure nothing slips through). The other big issue is patents (meaning that this "GPLed ZFS" will be subject to patent lawsuits). But: 1. Not all countries have software patents. 2. Most patents should expire within a decade (I think. I didn't do a lot of research, but the earliest lawsuits I found were around 2006?)

rincebrain 9y ago

Yeah, Linux is never going to merge something CDDL into the mainline short of people achieving porcine aviation. Among other things, booting from ZFS on Linux can still be an experience with rough edges - I think one distro makes it easy to do from the installer (Slackware?), but otherwise you get to follow instructions which are opaque to someone not already familiar with running Linux, and debugging can be weird even if you are (the most common thing I've seen is the initramfs failing to import the pool and dropping to a rescue prompt, then succeeding at importing there - for a variety of reasons, usually not "the disks weren't spun up yet when it tried importing" any more). There's also the caveat that frequently ZFS gains feature flag support faster than GRUB2 gets updated to boot from those features, particularly since you can't just shove CDDL code into GRUB2, so you get to reimplement the wheel, and zpool upgrade/zpool set doesn't currently warn you that you're gonna make your pool unbootable if you turn on those features. I'm not a distro maintainer or anything of the sort, but between the above rough edges and concerns about redistributability of CDDL modules compiled against the Linux kernel and patents, I'm not surprised that people shy away from it unless $BIG_CUSTOMER throws a lot of money at them to make it a first-class citizen. (I'm also really curious, consequently, why Canonical is diving headfirst onto the wagon...)

Spivak 9y ago
> (I'm also really curious, consequently, why Canonical is diving headfirst onto the wagon...) I think it's a combination of being fans of ZFS and needing something to differentiate them from Red Hat.

greenhouse_gas 9y ago

ZFS as such will probably never make it (CDDL/GPL incompatibility - unless Oracle will relicense it). But what _could_ make it is a reverse-engineered "GPLed" ZFS (and, being that OpenZFS code is available, it shouldn't be that hard for a largeish team - someone just has to audit the code to make sure nothing slips through). The other big issue is patents (meaning that this "GPLed ZFS" will be subject to patent lawsuits). But: 1. Not all countries have software patents. 2. Most patents should expire within a decade (I think. I didn't do a lot of research, but the earliest lawsuits I found were around 2006?)