ZFS License and Future

Svein Skogen (Listmail account) svein-listmail at stillbilde.net
Sat Nov 6 17:12:31 UTC 2010


On 06.11.2010 17:44, Chris Brennan wrote:
>  On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 12:16 PM, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Nov 05, 2010 at 11:25:13PM -0500, Steven Susbauer wrote:
>>> On 11/5/10 4:34 PM, Chad Perrin wrote:
>>>> Will Oracle start using patent suits to try to stop people
>>>> who aren't paying for ZFS or who are using it on platforms other than
>>>> Solaris from using it?
>>>>
>>>> Whether you think concerns like these will prove reasonable in the long
>>>> run, they make a lot more sense than assuming that Alejandro just
>> wonders
>>>> if the CDDL is "dangerous" somehow.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I would be surprised. Oracle (real Oracle, not Sun) is still the primary
>>> developer of btrfs on Linux. They are pretty much going for feature
>>> parity with ZFS and want people to actually use it. If they start suing
>>> over ZFS patents which are certainly applicable to btrfs, it will have
>>> repercussions on that side.
>>
>> Perhaps.
>>
>> On the other hand, Oracle could offer some kind of "patent covenant"
>> protecting btrfs while going after a ZFS fork as a way of "focing" people
>> to migrate from it to btrfs, as a more hostile way of achieving what
>> Microsoft does when it ends support for an older OS to get people to buy
>> the newer Windows release.
>>
>> . . . or maybe Oracle will decide it doesn't need the open source
>> community's help any longer at some future date, and shut down *both*
>> open source filesystem development projects.
>>
>> Oracle is known to be at least intermittently hostile toward open source
>> software, in ways that are sometimes more frightening than Microsoft's
>> hostility.  This is scaring people, and I don't blame them.  The
>> uncertainty about Oracle's future position on everything it has acquired
>> with Sun is something that will need to be tested and observed to see how
>> it shakes out in the next few years; in the meantime, I do not blame
>> anyone for being cautious about committing to use of open source software
>> under the Oracle umbrella.
>>
>> --
>> Chad Perrin [ original content licensed OWL: http://owl.apotheon.org ]
>>
> 
> Chad, what are these attachments to your e-mail? My client keeps flagging
> your mail as questionable and I'm sandboxing it to make sure it's nothing
> bad :D

I suppose they are the PGP signature?

//Svein

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