> And yet here we are, with DTrace (CDDL) shipping in macOS, ZFS having shipped in OS X for several releases, and FreeBSD shipping both. Even Windows (on the "i

> And yet here we are, with DTrace (CDDL) shipping in macOS, ZFS having shipped in OS X for several releases, and FreeBSD shipping both. Even Windows (on the "insider" builds) has DTrace [1] _shipped by Microsoft_. That's why I personally strongly prefer BSD systems (OpenBSD in particular) and permissively-licensed software. > That makes any argument that you can't use any of this stuff unless using Solaris looking rather... wrong The intent was to lock out Linux specifically, otherwise they would've used a more restrictive license. > [...] and the idea that Sun lawyers would have overlooked [...] You're not violating the CDDL by linking it with GPL-licensed software, you're violating the GPL. Which goes to show just how devious that move was: even if Sun went belly up with no lawyers left to lift a finger, relicensing Linux with a CDDL linking exception would still be a massive clusterfuck. So Ubuntu & whoever else is shipping zfs.ko is risking getting sued by any of the half a million people who have their code in the kernel. > In the case of CDDL specifically, even RMS [2] refers to it as a "free software license", though not one which is GPL-compatible. You can also license your software even more permissively, but hold a patent on it, and not grant a patent license to your users. It would technically be free, but still released with an intent of restricting the freedom of certain users.