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posted by CoolHand on Tuesday September 11 2018, @03:29PM   Printer-friendly
from the zed-eff-ess-or-zee-eff-ess dept.

John Paul Wohlscheid over at It's FOSS takes a look at the ZFS file system and its capabilities. He mainly covers OpenZFS which is the fork made since Oracle bought and shut down Solaris which was the original host of ZFS. It features pooled storage with RAID-like capabilities, copy-on-write with snapshots, data integrity verification and automatic repair, and it can handle files up to 16 exabytes in size, with file systems of up to 256 quadrillion zettabytes in size should you have enough electricity to pull that off. Because it started development under a deliberately incompatible license, ZFS cannot be directly integrated in Linux. However, several distros work around that and provide packages for it. It has been ported to FreeBSD since 2008.


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  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:41PM (6 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @01:41PM (#733588)

    What does that have to do with Oracle though?

    As other's have already pointed out, the way in which the module is tying in to the Linux OS has long been okayed by Linus and many other key Linux contributors. Other Linux stakeholders might try to cause problems since it is technically, a violation of the GPL, but the risk is small. And has nothing whatsoever to do with Oracle, since Oracle is not making the module.

    The only way Oracle gets involved is if the module violates the CDDL - and from what I've read it sounds like it does not.

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  • (Score: 2) by pendorbound on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:48PM (1 child)

    by pendorbound (2688) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @02:48PM (#733618) Homepage

    A small quibble: Loading ZFS into the kernel, even linking it directly into a compiled monolithic kernel IS NOT a GPL violation. Distributing the result of that linkage to someone else is a GPL violation. No Linux contributor has standing to come after you if you link ZFS on your own hardware nor load a loadable kernel module for it.

    GPL is a distribution license. You can only violate it if you're giving a copy of GPL licensed code to someone else. (And distributing a kernel linked with CDDL ZFS code is no-question a violation.)

    Fair Use is your "license" for working on your own systems. You can link in anything you like from anywhere. As long as you don't distribute it, you can never violate the GPL.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:02PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:02PM (#733635) Journal

      If some kernel developer, or a dead kernel developer's estate were to bring a lawsuit over linking, it would still be ugly and expensive -- even if you win.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:01PM (3 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @03:01PM (#733632) Journal

    I agree with you. I think this is evident from some of my other nearby posts.

    My concern would be that not all kernel contributors might agree. It only takes one to bring an expensive lawsuit. Some kernel developers are dead and who knows what their estate might to for extra profit. The kernel developer might care about Linux and open source, but their estate might not.

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 2) by pendorbound on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:45PM (2 children)

      by pendorbound (2688) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @04:45PM (#733699) Homepage

      Any such estate would be suing Nvidia, Broadcom, and any of a dozen much larger companies over the non-GPL blobs they load in with their modules. You can't have accelerated video, WiFi, or lots of other functionality in Linux from a huge variety of hardware manufacturers without linking non-GPL code into the kernel. The kernel source tree includes numerous blobs for common hardware which the copyright holders have granted permission to distribute with Linux but have NOT released under a GPL license with source code.

      Please stop spreading FUD on this issue. The question of whether you the end user can link binary blobs into your kernel without violating the GPL is about as settled as any question in copyright law can get. You have the right to do that. Just don't give the linked copy to anyone. Distributing the un-linked components and instructions or scripts that do the linking is permissible.

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:36PM (1 child)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 12 2018, @06:36PM (#733777) Journal

        Any such estate would be suing Nvidia, Broadcom, and any of a dozen much larger companies over the non-GPL blobs

        That is an excellent point.

        Please stop spreading FUD on this issue.

        I don't believe I am spreading FUD.

        While I don't have any problem linking anything I want to GPL code on my personal systems; and encouraging other people to do so; I won't do it in a commercial setting. I can't. There are probably others that can't.

        Another excellent point is that if we're not worried about kernel blobs, and it seems neither of us are, then ZFS is probably not a concern.

        My caution started with the GPL licensed MySQL ages ago. Probably no longer an issue. But if the copyright owner views it a certain way, I'm definitely not going to argue with them about it -- even if they are wrong.

        I've taken that attitude to the extreme with even a potential technical licensing issue that could arise.

        I'll also bring up Oracle again. They should have no case to bring a lawsuit. But that doesn't mean they wouldn't if they saw dollar signs. This is a company that is suing over APIs being copyrightable, and merely having a compatible API is a copyright infringement. So don't be so quick to say FUD.

        SCO had no case against IBM either. Maybe only a dispute about an irrelevant contract. As that is all that is left of their case. Yet it lingers on. I bring this up because while SCO had no case, and IBM was vindicated, look how much time and money has been expended. We know SCO spent at least $30 million in legal costs -- that we know of for sure. Over the years it was estimated that IBM has spent at least a hundred million. In 2002 if I said that SCO might sue that Linux had copyright infringing code stolen from Unix, you might accuse me of FUD. But in March 2003 I would have laughed at you for it. So don't be so quick with the FUD.

        There are people who deliberately, willfully and knowingly spread FUD and for exactly the purpose of what FUD expands to. I have a legitimate concern.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:40PM

          by Immerman (3985) on Wednesday September 12 2018, @07:40PM (#733804)

          If you're going to worry about baseless lawsuits your only real defense is to be so insignificant and uninteresting that nobody knows about you. After all it doesn't matter if you've never done anything even remotely questionably legal in your entire life - you can still be dragged through an immensely expensive lawsuit by anyone who wants to cause you trouble. Heck, pretty much the entire RIAA "anti-piracy" legal strategy is to sue people who can't afford to fight back, despite a near-total lack of evidence.