From: "Joerg Schilling" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Ignatich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Joerg Schilling writes:
> There is a lot of missunderstandings with the GPL.
>
> Porting ZFS to Linux wouldnotmake ZFS a "derived work" from Linux.
> I do not see why anyone could claim that there is a need to publish ZFS
> under
> GPL in case you use it on Linux. The CDDL however allows you to use it
> together
> with _any_ other license. So where is the problem?
You may have a perfectly valid point. ATI and nVidia both provide
non-GPL drivers for Linux. But I don't think it's that easy. You can't
port a file system to Linux without using EXPORT_GPL APIs. That means
Linux developers view such code as "derived work". I prefer to be safe
than sorry.
Authors/porters from Europe definitely have the right to use small parts
of
other people's code as ("wissenschaftliches Kleinzitat") and do not even
ask
the author for permission as long as the mention him.
As long as nobody like to combine the Linux and the ZFS project into one
single
"work", I see no problems.
You see no problems, I see no problems but various Linux people do,
including Linus. But as all we have is a collection of different viewpoints
and nothing has been "decided" in a court of law, the exact meaning is
open to interpretation/discussion.
What stands in ZFS's favour is that it has not been create _for_ Linux,
rather that using the various header files is a way of _also_ making it
available for Linux. Search the internet for discussions of the porting
of AFS to Linux (I think it was AFS where a similar discussion was held)
and the prevailing opinion - and if I recall correctly, this includes
Linus - seems to suggest that using Linux header files to make something
_also_ available for Linux is ok and doesn't require that the rest of
the code be GPL'd.
What they want to do is use this as a weapon against those who release
binary driver blobs _for_ Linux in an effort to get people to open up
their driver details.
IOW, if you created a filesystem with CDDL/BSD licence _for_ Linux and
used their equivalent of the VFS layer, a *lot* of people would stand up
and say your work should also be GPL'd, whether you like it or not.
Darren
_______________________________________________
zfs-discuss mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
