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The only entity to start a litigation cycle is Oracle, and they've either been uninterested or know they can't win. Canonical is the only entity they have any c

by chungy 3y ago

The only entity to start a litigation cycle is Oracle, and they've either been uninterested or know they can't win. Canonical is the only entity they have any chance of going after; Canonical's lawyers already decided there was no license conflict. Linus Torvalds doesn't feel like being the guinea pig by risking ZFS in the mainline kernel. A totally reasonable position while the CDDL+GPL resolution is still ultimately unknown. (And honestly, with OpenZFS supporting a very wide range of Linux versions and FreeBSD at the same time, I have the feeling that mainline inclusion in Linux might not be the best outcome anyway.)

bubblethink 3y ago
Not to mention, bcachefs is making progress towards mainline.
Nextgrid 3y ago
I wonder what Oracle would litigate over though? My understanding is that licenses are generally used by copyright holders to restrict what others can do with a work so the holder can profit off the work and/or keep a competitive advantage. Here I do not see this argument applying since the source is freely available to use and extend; the license explicitly allows someone to compile it and use it. In this case providing prebuilt binaries is more akin to providing a "cache" for something you can (and are allowed to) build locally (using ZFS-DKMS for example) using source you are once again allowed to acquire and use. What prejudice does it cause to Oracle that the “make” command is ran on Ubuntu’s build servers as opposed to users’ individual machines? Have similar cases been litigated before where the argument was about who runs the make command, with source that either party has otherwise a right to download & use?
- Dylan16807 3y ago
  Copying and distributing those binaries is covered by copyright. You have to follow the license if you want to do it. It doesn't matter that end users could legally get the same files in some other manner. Distribution itself is part of the legal framework.
- wkat4242 3y ago
  Playing legal chicken with Oracle is a really dumb thing to do because catching their customers in obscure license violations and then suing the hell out of them is their entire business model. They specialise in this stuff.

by chungy 3y ago

bubblethink 3y ago

Not to mention, bcachefs is making progress towards mainline.

Nextgrid 3y ago

I wonder what Oracle would litigate over though? My understanding is that licenses are generally used by copyright holders to restrict what others can do with a work so the holder can profit off the work and/or keep a competitive advantage. Here I do not see this argument applying since the source is freely available to use and extend; the license explicitly allows someone to compile it and use it. In this case providing prebuilt binaries is more akin to providing a "cache" for something you can (and are allowed to) build locally (using ZFS-DKMS for example) using source you are once again allowed to acquire and use. What prejudice does it cause to Oracle that the “make” command is ran on Ubuntu’s build servers as opposed to users’ individual machines? Have similar cases been litigated before where the argument was about who runs the make command, with source that either party has otherwise a right to download & use?

Dylan16807 3y ago
Copying and distributing those binaries is covered by copyright. You have to follow the license if you want to do it. It doesn't matter that end users could legally get the same files in some other manner. Distribution itself is part of the legal framework.
wkat4242 3y ago
Playing legal chicken with Oracle is a really dumb thing to do because catching their customers in obscure license violations and then suing the hell out of them is their entire business model. They specialise in this stuff.