Canonical accused of violating GPL with ZFS-in-Ubuntu 16.04 plan

I am not an attorney and I have no idea who's right and who's wrong here. I just think it's going to be interesting to watch this play out.

Since the ZFS support is being built as a module, I don't think there is going to be any trouble, whatsoever. The ZFS code is open enough that they can fork the existing code (to remove any potential kernel hooks), leave it within the same type of license and just have a shim to the kernel for it to run. People used to say the same stuff about nVidia drivers, but there's no license issue with them...

Ah, the Conservancy. The epitome of whats wrong with FOSS these days.

jasep: that may be possible, but it isn't being done.

nvidia has no license issues because no-one is trying to violate the license. debian distributes nvidia modules in the non-free section, and ubuntu distributes them in restricted. fedora doesn't distribute it at all. according to the conservancy, that is fine.

zfs kernel modules on the other hand, appear not to be distributed by debian or fedora at all, only ubuntu, and there not in restricted but universe.

now the thing that i am confused about is, why is distributing in non-free/restricted ok, when doing so in main isn't? the only difference is that one is clearly shown as having license issues. seems to me that if there is an issue, only the fedora approach is fine. otherwise, it's a combined distribution of a derivative with an incompatible license.

greetings, eMBee.

Better wait until ZFS gets merged into the kernel.

ZFS can't be merged into the kernel,... the license is incompatible.

Given all the events going on in the country right now (not just in FOSS), I think going long popcorn sellers might be a very good idea.

JaseP: the on-disk format may be patent-able (think exFAT) but it can still be reverse-engineered without exposure to CDDL-licensed source.

That means abandoning the current code base in favor of a reverse-engineered one... Possible,... but... Unlikely. More likely would be to just produce a kernel module shim,... and run ZFS as a driver module that doesn't contain kernel hooks.

Putting aside the legal wrangling, there is one point that I haven't seen anyone bring up.

The CDDL was designed explicitly to be incompatible with the GPL. It was based off of the Mozilla Public License, for that very reason.

That isn't to say Canonical can't develop a clean-room implementation of a ZFS driver. But in no way can it bear any trace of Solaris code and still be GPL-compatible.

Quoting: Putting aside the legal wrangling, there is one point that I haven't seen anyone bring up.

The CDDL was designed explicitly to be incompatible with the GPL. It was based off of the Mozilla Public License, for that very reason.

That isn't to say Canonical can't develop a clean-room implementation of a ZFS driver. But in no way can it bear any trace of Solaris code and still be GPL-compatible.

Very true. However, due to the ability to create driver modules for the kernel,... It isn't always necessary to have GPL compliance with the code. The trick is to not implicate the GPL, while complying with the original license. It's easier to do this with the GPL v2 than the GPL v3.

@JaseP,

>> It isn't always necessary to have GPL compliance with the code. The trick is to not implicate the GPL, while complying with the original license. It's easier to do this with the GPL v2 than the GPL v3.

Wonder what tricks CanUBeComical will pull to get around full GPL compliance with the CDDL? Grand counteraccusatory PR statements from $huttleworthtoomuch's YesMen and fanbois sayin Ain't No Probs Here At All?

2c

It doesn't have to be GPL compatible for Canonical to include it in their distributions. The existing license permits distribution and I assume it isn't encumbered by patents. GPL licensed code can be patent encumbered and unavailable as a result, such as certain media codecs.

All Canonical are doing is including support in their installation media. If there were licensing or patent issues preventing them from doing that, they wouldn't.