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> Keep in mind that Oracle is the copyright holder of ZFS. So you (and Ubuntu) are violating Oracle's license terms. If anything IS a problem here it is violat

by jen20 4y ago

> Keep in mind that Oracle is the copyright holder of ZFS. So you (and Ubuntu) are violating Oracle's license terms. If anything IS a problem here it is violating the terms of the GPL, not the CDDL. So no, no one is violating Oracles licensing terms - and if they were, they’d have been sued in 2016 when this shipped. Do you really think ORACLE of all people is just holding back out the goodness of their hearts? Complete FUD.

josephcsible 4y ago
> If anything IS a problem here it is violating the terms of the GPL, not the CDDL. How so? Aren't the GPL and CDDL both copyleft? > So no, no one is violating Oracles licensing terms - and if they were, they’d have been sued in 2016 when this shipped. Do you really think ORACLE of all people is just holding back out the goodness of their hearts? No, Oracle is holding back because they want more money. If they sue a little guy now, then everyone else will immediately stop using ZFS-on-Linux. They're waiting until someone with really deep pockets starts to use it before they sue.
- trasz 4y ago
  >How so? Aren't the GPL and CDDL both copyleft? They are, but GPL is (tl;dr) incompatible with anything that's not a subset of GPL. That's because GPL is viral, and CDDL isn't. And that's why in the Open Source world you can't get license incompatibility without throwing GPL in the mix. So, yeah, it's GPL that's possibly being violated; CDDL is fine with whatever license there is. Oracle could sue you if they relicensed ZFS under GPL, but can't with CDDL because of implicit protection CDDL contains.
  - josephcsible 4y ago
    Isn't the whole reason that the CDDL is a problem that it is viral too? Otherwise you could just distribute the whole bundle of ZFS+Linux as GPL and be fine.
    - trasz 4y ago
      It's not, CDDL explicitly states it doesn't apply to non-CDDL-ed source files. The problem is, GPL is claimed to be the other way around, so this would mean applying GPL to CDDL sources, and you can't do that, because CDDL gives you additional protections ("freedoms") GPL doesn't, and that's GPL-incompatible.
      - josephcsible 4y ago
        If I combined ZFS and the Linux kernel and licensed the result under the CDDL, I'd be violating the GPL. If I instead licensed the result under the GPL, then I'd be violating the CDDL. I'm not seeing how the licenses' differences actually cause an asymmetry here.
        trasz 4y ago
        You can't "license the result", it's not your decision to make. GPL parts are GPL, CDDL parts are CDDL, BSD parts are BSD and so on. There's no problem with mixing code under different licences. That is, until GPL enters the picture - because GPL is viral, so it (at least according to FSF) claims the non-GPL parts too. It's not a problem for, say, BSD, because it's a subset of GPL[1], but it can be a problem with licenses that guarantee you more freedoms than GPL, like CDDL, Mozilla license, Apache, or even GPLv3. 1. And it used to be a problem with the old BSD, with the advertising clause, precisely because it wasn't a subset.
jsiepkes 4y ago
> If anything IS a problem here it is violating the terms of the GPL, not the CDDL. The CDDL terms are violated because you can't re-license code that is under the CDDL (in contrast to for example the BSD licenses). The GPLv2 is a strong copy-left license that puts the CDDL files under GPLv2. Even the creators of the CDDL themselves have stated that the CDDL is probably incompatible with the GPL [1]. [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/114840/ https://lwn.net/Articles/114840/
- greggyb 4y ago
  You cannot relicense BSD code. In general, you cannot change anything about the copyright or license for any work that you do not own the copyright to. Perhaps you mean the BSD licensed artifacts are "compatible" with copyleft licenses?
  - jsiepkes 4y ago
    Relicense might not the best word but compatible also doesn't cover it in this context. Saying you can "assimilate" BSD licensed code in to a GPL project might be more appropriate. Since rights such as "Redistribution and use in source and binary forms" which the BSD gives you no longer apply after the code is in a GPL project [1]. You can't do this with CDDL licensed source code. [1] https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-collaboration.html https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-colla...

by jen20 4y ago

josephcsible 4y ago

> If anything IS a problem here it is violating the terms of the GPL, not the CDDL. How so? Aren't the GPL and CDDL both copyleft? > So no, no one is violating Oracles licensing terms - and if they were, they’d have been sued in 2016 when this shipped. Do you really think ORACLE of all people is just holding back out the goodness of their hearts? No, Oracle is holding back because they want more money. If they sue a little guy now, then everyone else will immediately stop using ZFS-on-Linux. They're waiting until someone with really deep pockets starts to use it before they sue.

trasz 4y ago
>How so? Aren't the GPL and CDDL both copyleft? They are, but GPL is (tl;dr) incompatible with anything that's not a subset of GPL. That's because GPL is viral, and CDDL isn't. And that's why in the Open Source world you can't get license incompatibility without throwing GPL in the mix. So, yeah, it's GPL that's possibly being violated; CDDL is fine with whatever license there is. Oracle could sue you if they relicensed ZFS under GPL, but can't with CDDL because of implicit protection CDDL contains.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Isn't the whole reason that the CDDL is a problem that it is viral too? Otherwise you could just distribute the whole bundle of ZFS+Linux as GPL and be fine.
  - trasz 4y ago
    It's not, CDDL explicitly states it doesn't apply to non-CDDL-ed source files. The problem is, GPL is claimed to be the other way around, so this would mean applying GPL to CDDL sources, and you can't do that, because CDDL gives you additional protections ("freedoms") GPL doesn't, and that's GPL-incompatible.
    - josephcsible 4y ago
      If I combined ZFS and the Linux kernel and licensed the result under the CDDL, I'd be violating the GPL. If I instead licensed the result under the GPL, then I'd be violating the CDDL. I'm not seeing how the licenses' differences actually cause an asymmetry here.
      - trasz 4y ago
        You can't "license the result", it's not your decision to make. GPL parts are GPL, CDDL parts are CDDL, BSD parts are BSD and so on. There's no problem with mixing code under different licences. That is, until GPL enters the picture - because GPL is viral, so it (at least according to FSF) claims the non-GPL parts too. It's not a problem for, say, BSD, because it's a subset of GPL[1], but it can be a problem with licenses that guarantee you more freedoms than GPL, like CDDL, Mozilla license, Apache, or even GPLv3. 1. And it used to be a problem with the old BSD, with the advertising clause, precisely because it wasn't a subset.

jsiepkes 4y ago

> If anything IS a problem here it is violating the terms of the GPL, not the CDDL. The CDDL terms are violated because you can't re-license code that is under the CDDL (in contrast to for example the BSD licenses). The GPLv2 is a strong copy-left license that puts the CDDL files under GPLv2. Even the creators of the CDDL themselves have stated that the CDDL is probably incompatible with the GPL [1]. [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/114840/ https://lwn.net/Articles/114840/

greggyb 4y ago
You cannot relicense BSD code. In general, you cannot change anything about the copyright or license for any work that you do not own the copyright to. Perhaps you mean the BSD licensed artifacts are "compatible" with copyleft licenses?
- jsiepkes 4y ago
  Relicense might not the best word but compatible also doesn't cover it in this context. Saying you can "assimilate" BSD licensed code in to a GPL project might be more appropriate. Since rights such as "Redistribution and use in source and binary forms" which the BSD gives you no longer apply after the code is in a GPL project [1]. You can't do this with CDDL licensed source code. [1] https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-collaboration.html https://softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-colla...