16 ms·

Since Linux came first (and was GPL licensed first), it's worth remembering that ZFS was intentionally made incompatible with the GPL via the "CDDL"

nix23 6y ago
>ZFS was intentionally made incompatible with the GPL via the "CDDL" That was said by one lousy youtube comment without any explanation, Ubuntu has no problems with it...and i bet they have lawyers, i think it was in that vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc It's also crazy, nearly no distro has a problem shipping ultra-proprietary software (firmware), but has a big discussion about CDDL, no one wants ZFS in the Kernel tree, imagine Linus has control over it and has no clue was ZFS even is: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/01/19/0059251/what-linus-torvalds-gets-wrong-about-zfs https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/01/19/0059251/what-linus...
- toyg 6y ago
  It is however undisputable that Sun (and Oracle later) chose to write their own license for some of their opensource efforts, when there were very established alternatives already available. It's hard not to draw the conclusion that they made things awkward on purpose (i.e. to keep it away from Linux, the dominant OS in Solaris' market).
  - nix23 6y ago
    >made things awkward on purpose Maybe, some could say that the GPL2 is really awkward, but you have to know that Microsoft and Apple have their own opensource license too...big business is awkward.
  - znpy 6y ago
    There's a very interesting talk on the matter by Bryan Cantrill where he explained that the gpl was unsuitable for their scope for a number of valid reasons, including the fact that the gpl vitality would have affected indipendent hardware vendors too, iirc. And some more cases. I hope I didn't write bs, however here is the talk of you want to know more and with more details: https://youtu.be/Zpnncakrelk https://youtu.be/Zpnncakrelk (leaping the chasm from proprietary to open: a survivor's guide) As usual Bryan Cantrill is just brilliant at explaining stuff. Edit: just to be explicit: it was NOT about keeping stuff out of Linux.
    - toyg 6y ago
      It's sad that even a brilliant person like Bryan can get opensource so horribly wrong at a fundamental level. Right at the beginning, he says F/OSS established itself because it leapt ahead technologically, not because "all that freedom / user rights stuff"; he totally fails to see how that "user rights stuff" is what allowed the jump to happen - because even developers are users when they first encounter a piece of software. Without the rights of users to read source, tweak it to their liking, and republish it, there is no right for developers to enable the technological leap. I hope Bryan simply chose a poor turn of phrase. He makes another poor turn when he says that the CDDL kept stuff out of Linux, but "not because of the CDDL but because of perceptions of the GPL" (i.e. IHVs didn't want to deal with the GPL). The license and the choice of using it are two different things. Sun could have written a license that was not GPL (to satisfy IHVs) but was compatible with GPL. They did not. Danese Cooper, who was part of that effort, says this was on purpose, and stated it on record ( http://caesar.ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian-meetings/2006/debconf6/theora-small/2006-05-14/tower/OpenSolaris_Java_and_Debian-Simon_Phipps__Alvaro_Lopez_Ortega.ogg http://caesar.ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian-meetings/2006/debcon... from 27:30). I guess Bryan was one of those engineers Danese mentions as "having some biases" back then. It was certainly obvious, at the time, what a careful avoidance of a license compatible with the biggest Solaris competitor would have resulted in, from a practical and commercial standpoint.
      - nix23 6y ago
        >Sun could have written a license that was not GPL (to satisfy IHVs) but was compatible with GPL Why? Why even care about GPL? It's 100% compatible to MIT/BSD/ISC and that's enough, even Linus said that he probably would choose the ISC today, he chose mainly the GPL because GCC had it...and now they have GPLv3 (an absolute shit decision if you ask me).
        toyg 6y ago
        (ISC is a troublesome license, but that's beyond the point) Licenses are not adopted in a vacuum. The license is what made GCC what it was when Linus had to pick a license, and arguably what made Linux what it is today. A "BSD Linux" would have likely ended up the same way BSD systems have: a largely academic project routinely cannibalized by behemoth closed-source companies. The question, yesterday and today, is really "why not care about the GPL?". The rights it grants are what made the F/OSS ecosystem what it is today. If you want to grant more rights to your users and developers, by all means use a less restrictive but compatible license like modified BSD, or MPL 2. It's easier to do that without fear of withering, now that opensource is the de-facto default choice in a lot of fields. It definitely was not as easy back in the '90s or early '00s, which is when the GPL effectively fought the war for the whole field. If you choose to stick with pre-MPL2 derivatives, though, you are clearly not interested in granting users and developers the same basic rights as the GPL.
- znpy 6y ago
  > It's also crazy, nearly no distro has a problem shipping ultra-proprietary software (firmware), but has a big discussion about CDDL, no one wants ZFS in the Kernel tree Jesus Christ you are absolutely right I hadn't seen the issue under that light.
- cesarb 6y ago
  > It's also crazy, nearly no distro has a problem shipping ultra-proprietary software (firmware), but has a big discussion about CDDL, It's the difference between "mere aggregation" and "derived work". The kernel+ZFS can be considered a derived work from both, so it has to obey both licenses (GPL2 and CDDL) at the same time; on the other hand, the firmware is completely independent from the kernel, so the licenses (GPL2 and the proprietary license) apply separately to each component. > Ubuntu has no problems with it...and i bet they have lawyers On the other hand, Fedora has problems with it as a kernel module (but they do ship it as a ZFS FUSE module, see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ZFS https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ZFS), and they do have lawyers (Red Hat's lawyers review all the licenses for Fedora, and they consider the CDDL to be incompatible with the GPL: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main).
  - nix23 6y ago
    >The kernel+ZFS can be considered a derived work from both What?? No why?...no one of those project is derived from each other, ZFS is a module (on all platforms i think). >and they consider the CDDL to be incompatible with the GPL https://zonena.me/2019/01/the-cddl-is-not-incompatible-with-the-gpl/ https://zonena.me/2019/01/the-cddl-is-not-incompatible-with-... That's the important part: >You may distribute the Executable form of the Covered Software under the terms of this License or under the terms of a license of Your choice, which may contain terms different from this License, provided that You are in compliance with the terms of this License and that the license for the Executable form does not attempt to limit or alter the recipients rights in the Source Code form from the rights set forth in this License. >To reiterate, executable forms of CDDL source code can be under ANY license you want. That means your compiled ZFS module package can even be under GPL2 or 3 or beerware ;)
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - cesarb 6y ago
      > no one of those project is derived from each other, ZFS is a module (on all platforms i think) Once compiled, the ZFS module is a derived work from both the Linux kernel and ZFS. > > You may distribute the Executable form of the Covered Software under the terms of this License or under the terms of a license of Your choice [...] does not attempt to limit or alter the recipients rights in the Source Code form from the rights set forth in this License. > That means your compiled ZFS module package can even be under GPL2 or 3 or beerware I trust the Red Hat lawyers on this matter more than someone who is not a lawyer (from that page: "While it's true that I am not a lawyer [...]"). And from what I understand (I'm also not a lawyer), that clause in the CDDL applies only to the compiled result; but the GPL requires that, if the compiled result is distributed as GPL, the corresponding source code also be available under the GPL. So you cannot distribute your compiled ZFS module package under GPL2 unless the corresponding source code can also be distributed under GPL2.
- catmistake 6y ago
  > imagine Linus has control over it and has no clue was ZFS even is I keep getting down voted, maybe I am too annoying for HN. But I'll risk it in the hopes this is helpful, in the social and psychological space. First of all, I have been in awe of ZFS since... ever. But FS were not my curiosity, OS was, so I installed OpenSolaris and Illumos in VMs, a few times to get used to how these things install. No work, just play. That's me. I was sad Apple did not adopt ZFS, but they did develop a read-only something, kernel extension, I think, don't recall. And there is some support from the generous for OpenZFS on OS X (idk about macOS). Why not ZFS? Because it is different and complicated, and it takes dedication to learn. Had Apple adopted it as the native FS, I would have been forced to learn it, so that is why it made me sad. I need that kind of motivation. But many are this way to some extent. Everyone is industrious and everyone is lazy. When you can learn easily, you learn. When you must learn, you learn. When you get older, you just want to keep doing things the old way, the way you know how, and you can do that for 12+ hours a day and yet learn nothing new. Linus is just a man. I'm glad the penguinistas have faded into the background, and I am happy for Linux, but fail to see that it was any better than NetBSD when the fanatics were vocal. Linux would have benefitted from not changing a lot of userland stuff that was changed from *NIX for no rational reason, but probably just for ignorance and arrogance. Just MHO. But now Linux is important. It just is what it is. So Linus is insanely industrious, and also lazy just like most. How often does he learn something new, how often does he just work like a mad dog without learning anything new? Just a man, perhaps a very smart man, but no more. And he is imperfect. And I strongly suspect, by the public evidence of the tell-tale symptoms, he has an identifiable personality disorder, and it is the one that includes the symptom of an unwillingness or inability to recognize the problem. But IIRC, he did admit to things, and supposedly took time off to work on himself. But this can't be cured by the patient, though it, oddly enough, can be cured, one of the few mental illness than can be cured, not just maintained, but only after getting evaluated by a professional, and treated, and the treatment is easy, just sitting with the pro and talking twice a month for 45 minutes for up to two years. At least my understanding of it, it can be cured in two years or less depending on its severity, though rarely ever is. This is not criticism, it is compassion. Presidents get this. Captains of industry get this. Winning NFL quarterbacks get this. And it is not any surprise the Lord of the Linux kernel can get this. And I wish him the best. We're all allowed to be incorrect and imperfect. But those that stand out get better, because they try. But as far as laziness is concerned, because I am lazy, too, and I believe most are, I can't fault anyone for being lazy and not learning new stuff, especially in order to have a better understanding of it to be able to say something about it that makes sense. However, those that do change themselves for the better, those that are not lazy and learn new things, should be applauded, and given gratitude for the possibility that their example will be followed... hopefully by me, too.

nix23 6y ago

>ZFS was intentionally made incompatible with the GPL via the "CDDL" That was said by one lousy youtube comment without any explanation, Ubuntu has no problems with it...and i bet they have lawyers, i think it was in that vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc It's also crazy, nearly no distro has a problem shipping ultra-proprietary software (firmware), but has a big discussion about CDDL, no one wants ZFS in the Kernel tree, imagine Linus has control over it and has no clue was ZFS even is: https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/01/19/0059251/what-linus-torvalds-gets-wrong-about-zfs https://linux.slashdot.org/story/20/01/19/0059251/what-linus...

toyg 6y ago
It is however undisputable that Sun (and Oracle later) chose to write their own license for some of their opensource efforts, when there were very established alternatives already available. It's hard not to draw the conclusion that they made things awkward on purpose (i.e. to keep it away from Linux, the dominant OS in Solaris' market).
- nix23 6y ago
  >made things awkward on purpose Maybe, some could say that the GPL2 is really awkward, but you have to know that Microsoft and Apple have their own opensource license too...big business is awkward.
- znpy 6y ago
  There's a very interesting talk on the matter by Bryan Cantrill where he explained that the gpl was unsuitable for their scope for a number of valid reasons, including the fact that the gpl vitality would have affected indipendent hardware vendors too, iirc. And some more cases. I hope I didn't write bs, however here is the talk of you want to know more and with more details: https://youtu.be/Zpnncakrelk https://youtu.be/Zpnncakrelk (leaping the chasm from proprietary to open: a survivor's guide) As usual Bryan Cantrill is just brilliant at explaining stuff. Edit: just to be explicit: it was NOT about keeping stuff out of Linux.
  - toyg 6y ago
    It's sad that even a brilliant person like Bryan can get opensource so horribly wrong at a fundamental level. Right at the beginning, he says F/OSS established itself because it leapt ahead technologically, not because "all that freedom / user rights stuff"; he totally fails to see how that "user rights stuff" is what allowed the jump to happen - because even developers are users when they first encounter a piece of software. Without the rights of users to read source, tweak it to their liking, and republish it, there is no right for developers to enable the technological leap. I hope Bryan simply chose a poor turn of phrase. He makes another poor turn when he says that the CDDL kept stuff out of Linux, but "not because of the CDDL but because of perceptions of the GPL" (i.e. IHVs didn't want to deal with the GPL). The license and the choice of using it are two different things. Sun could have written a license that was not GPL (to satisfy IHVs) but was compatible with GPL. They did not. Danese Cooper, who was part of that effort, says this was on purpose, and stated it on record ( http://caesar.ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian-meetings/2006/debconf6/theora-small/2006-05-14/tower/OpenSolaris_Java_and_Debian-Simon_Phipps__Alvaro_Lopez_Ortega.ogg http://caesar.ftp.acc.umu.se/pub/debian-meetings/2006/debcon... from 27:30). I guess Bryan was one of those engineers Danese mentions as "having some biases" back then. It was certainly obvious, at the time, what a careful avoidance of a license compatible with the biggest Solaris competitor would have resulted in, from a practical and commercial standpoint.
    - nix23 6y ago
      >Sun could have written a license that was not GPL (to satisfy IHVs) but was compatible with GPL Why? Why even care about GPL? It's 100% compatible to MIT/BSD/ISC and that's enough, even Linus said that he probably would choose the ISC today, he chose mainly the GPL because GCC had it...and now they have GPLv3 (an absolute shit decision if you ask me).
      - toyg 6y ago
        (ISC is a troublesome license, but that's beyond the point) Licenses are not adopted in a vacuum. The license is what made GCC what it was when Linus had to pick a license, and arguably what made Linux what it is today. A "BSD Linux" would have likely ended up the same way BSD systems have: a largely academic project routinely cannibalized by behemoth closed-source companies. The question, yesterday and today, is really "why not care about the GPL?". The rights it grants are what made the F/OSS ecosystem what it is today. If you want to grant more rights to your users and developers, by all means use a less restrictive but compatible license like modified BSD, or MPL 2. It's easier to do that without fear of withering, now that opensource is the de-facto default choice in a lot of fields. It definitely was not as easy back in the '90s or early '00s, which is when the GPL effectively fought the war for the whole field. If you choose to stick with pre-MPL2 derivatives, though, you are clearly not interested in granting users and developers the same basic rights as the GPL.
znpy 6y ago
> It's also crazy, nearly no distro has a problem shipping ultra-proprietary software (firmware), but has a big discussion about CDDL, no one wants ZFS in the Kernel tree Jesus Christ you are absolutely right I hadn't seen the issue under that light.
cesarb 6y ago
> It's also crazy, nearly no distro has a problem shipping ultra-proprietary software (firmware), but has a big discussion about CDDL, It's the difference between "mere aggregation" and "derived work". The kernel+ZFS can be considered a derived work from both, so it has to obey both licenses (GPL2 and CDDL) at the same time; on the other hand, the firmware is completely independent from the kernel, so the licenses (GPL2 and the proprietary license) apply separately to each component. > Ubuntu has no problems with it...and i bet they have lawyers On the other hand, Fedora has problems with it as a kernel module (but they do ship it as a ZFS FUSE module, see https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ZFS https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ZFS), and they do have lawyers (Red Hat's lawyers review all the licenses for Fedora, and they consider the CDDL to be incompatible with the GPL: https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:Main).
- nix23 6y ago
  >The kernel+ZFS can be considered a derived work from both What?? No why?...no one of those project is derived from each other, ZFS is a module (on all platforms i think). >and they consider the CDDL to be incompatible with the GPL https://zonena.me/2019/01/the-cddl-is-not-incompatible-with-the-gpl/ https://zonena.me/2019/01/the-cddl-is-not-incompatible-with-... That's the important part: >You may distribute the Executable form of the Covered Software under the terms of this License or under the terms of a license of Your choice, which may contain terms different from this License, provided that You are in compliance with the terms of this License and that the license for the Executable form does not attempt to limit or alter the recipients rights in the Source Code form from the rights set forth in this License. >To reiterate, executable forms of CDDL source code can be under ANY license you want. That means your compiled ZFS module package can even be under GPL2 or 3 or beerware ;)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - cesarb 6y ago
    > no one of those project is derived from each other, ZFS is a module (on all platforms i think) Once compiled, the ZFS module is a derived work from both the Linux kernel and ZFS. > > You may distribute the Executable form of the Covered Software under the terms of this License or under the terms of a license of Your choice [...] does not attempt to limit or alter the recipients rights in the Source Code form from the rights set forth in this License. > That means your compiled ZFS module package can even be under GPL2 or 3 or beerware I trust the Red Hat lawyers on this matter more than someone who is not a lawyer (from that page: "While it's true that I am not a lawyer [...]"). And from what I understand (I'm also not a lawyer), that clause in the CDDL applies only to the compiled result; but the GPL requires that, if the compiled result is distributed as GPL, the corresponding source code also be available under the GPL. So you cannot distribute your compiled ZFS module package under GPL2 unless the corresponding source code can also be distributed under GPL2.
catmistake 6y ago
> imagine Linus has control over it and has no clue was ZFS even is I keep getting down voted, maybe I am too annoying for HN. But I'll risk it in the hopes this is helpful, in the social and psychological space. First of all, I have been in awe of ZFS since... ever. But FS were not my curiosity, OS was, so I installed OpenSolaris and Illumos in VMs, a few times to get used to how these things install. No work, just play. That's me. I was sad Apple did not adopt ZFS, but they did develop a read-only something, kernel extension, I think, don't recall. And there is some support from the generous for OpenZFS on OS X (idk about macOS). Why not ZFS? Because it is different and complicated, and it takes dedication to learn. Had Apple adopted it as the native FS, I would have been forced to learn it, so that is why it made me sad. I need that kind of motivation. But many are this way to some extent. Everyone is industrious and everyone is lazy. When you can learn easily, you learn. When you must learn, you learn. When you get older, you just want to keep doing things the old way, the way you know how, and you can do that for 12+ hours a day and yet learn nothing new. Linus is just a man. I'm glad the penguinistas have faded into the background, and I am happy for Linux, but fail to see that it was any better than NetBSD when the fanatics were vocal. Linux would have benefitted from not changing a lot of userland stuff that was changed from *NIX for no rational reason, but probably just for ignorance and arrogance. Just MHO. But now Linux is important. It just is what it is. So Linus is insanely industrious, and also lazy just like most. How often does he learn something new, how often does he just work like a mad dog without learning anything new? Just a man, perhaps a very smart man, but no more. And he is imperfect. And I strongly suspect, by the public evidence of the tell-tale symptoms, he has an identifiable personality disorder, and it is the one that includes the symptom of an unwillingness or inability to recognize the problem. But IIRC, he did admit to things, and supposedly took time off to work on himself. But this can't be cured by the patient, though it, oddly enough, can be cured, one of the few mental illness than can be cured, not just maintained, but only after getting evaluated by a professional, and treated, and the treatment is easy, just sitting with the pro and talking twice a month for 45 minutes for up to two years. At least my understanding of it, it can be cured in two years or less depending on its severity, though rarely ever is. This is not criticism, it is compassion. Presidents get this. Captains of industry get this. Winning NFL quarterbacks get this. And it is not any surprise the Lord of the Linux kernel can get this. And I wish him the best. We're all allowed to be incorrect and imperfect. But those that stand out get better, because they try. But as far as laziness is concerned, because I am lazy, too, and I believe most are, I can't fault anyone for being lazy and not learning new stuff, especially in order to have a better understanding of it to be able to say something about it that makes sense. However, those that do change themselves for the better, those that are not lazy and learn new things, should be applauded, and given gratitude for the possibility that their example will be followed... hopefully by me, too.