Re: Sun's ZFS and Linux

From: Nix
Date: Sun Nov 20 2005 - 18:39:27 EST


On 20 Nov 2005, Tarkan Erimer yowled:
> On 11/19/05, Theodore Ts'o <tytso@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> That wouldn't be a "port", it would have to be a complete
>> reimplementation from scratch. And, of course, of further concern
>> would be whether or not there are any patents that Sun may have filed
>> covering ZFS. If the patents have only been licensed for CDDL
>> licensed code, then that won't help a GPL'ed covered reimplementation.
>
> Thanks for the explanation. BTW, I wonder something: Is there any
> possibility to give GPL an exception to include and/or link to CDDL
> code?

You'd have to get agreement from *all* the kernel's past
contributors. As some of them are dead this is not likely to happen.

(Well, OK, you could isolate their code and rewrite it but this
would be a big and annoying job, so you'd need a very compelling
reason. One extra filesystem isn't likely to be good enough.)

--
`Y'know, London's nice at this time of year. If you like your cities
freezing cold and full of surly gits.' --- David Damerell

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