Virally licensed code in FreeBSD kernel

[Philipp Wuensche]

Chad Perrin wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 14, 2007 at 06:55:39PM +0200, Philipp Wuensche wrote:
>> Brett Glass wrote:
>>
>> So CDDL does not require to license add-ons under CDDL, GPL does. In
>> this terms, FreeBSD is basically an add-on to the ZFS module ;-).
> 
> The most relevant part of the CDDL seems to be section 3.6, "Larger
> Works":
> 
>   You may create a Larger Work by combining Covered Software with other
>   code not governed by the terms of this License and distribute the
>   Larger Work as a single product. In such a case, You must make sure the
>   requirements of this License are fulfilled for the Covered Software.
> 
> The term "Covered Software" is defined in a sufficiently ambiguous
> manner that a court battle over whether or not a "Larger Work" would be
> subject, in full, to the terms of the CDDL would probably be decided in
> favor of the guy with more money:
> 
>   "Covered Software" means (a) the Original Software, or (b)
>   Modifications, or (c) the combination of files containing Original
>   Software with files containing Modifications, in each case including
>   portions thereof.

But the rest of the BSD system does not fall under "Original Software",
"Modifications" or combination of both as they are defined in this
licsense. As I see it, it just states that everything under CDDL in the
"Larger Work" has to be handled like that, this does not include the
rest of the "Larger Work" which would be "code not governed by the terms
of this License".

They explicitly state: "In such a case, You must make sure the
requirements of this License are fulfilled for the _Covered Software_."
So the requirements must be fullfilled for software under CDDL, and not
for "code not governed by the terms of this License" (code under BSD in
our case).

greetings,
philipp