ZFS License and Future

[Alejandro Imass]

On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 12:44 AM, Steven Susbauer <steven at too1337.com> wrote:
> On 11/5/10 5:19 PM, Alejandro Imass wrote:
>>
[...]
> It sounds like he's probably a big fan of the BSD license. I do not see how
> this is a bad thing, other than he uses potentially inflammatory words like
> "exploit." The basics of what he says are exactly what Red Hat has done from
> the beginning, and Apple with OS X. Note he says "take it for nothing," he
> is not referring to buying companies but the practice of
> including/distributing this software and providing support for the entirety.
>

Yes, but in practice, it looks like its really about buying companies
mostly for their IP and IMHO, in turn sequestering, and to potentially
close previously open source software. Of course, communities could
potentially fork the already released OSS, but patents and tricky
licensing schemes may stop them from doing so. I'm no expert and
perhaps is very much speculation but my gut feeling is that companies
like Oracle are in a position somewhat like SCO was a while back,
trying to compensate their shrinking revenue streams on software sales
by suing people.