On Thursday, February 8, 2024 6:36:56 PM CET Wols Lists wrote: > On 08/02/2024 06:32, J. Roeleveld wrote: > >> After all, there's nothing stopping*you* from combining Linux and ZFS, > >> it's just that somebody else can't do that for you, and then give you > >> the resulting binary. > > > > Linux (kernel) and ZFS can't be merged. Fine. > > But they can.
Not if you want to release it > > But, Linux (the OS, as in, kernel + userspace) and ZFS can be merged > > legally. > Likewise here, they can. > > The problem is, the BINARY can NOT be distributed. And the problem is > the ZFS licence, not Linux. You can distribute the binary of both, just not embedded into a single binary. > What Linus, and the kernel devs, and that crowd *think* is irrelevant. It is, as they are actively working on removing API calls that filesystems like ZFS actually need and hiding them behind a GPL wall. > What matters is what SUSE, and Red Hat, and Canonical et al think. And > if they're not prepared to take the risk of distributing the kernel with > ZFS built in, because they think it's a legal minefield, then that's > THEIR decision. I'm not talking about distributing ZFS embedded into the kernel. It's perfectly fine to distribute a distribution with ZFS as a kernel module. The issue is caused by the linux kernel devs blocking access to (previously existing and open) API calls and limiting them to GPL only. > That problem doesn't apply to gentoo, because it distributes the linux > kernel and ZFS separately, and combines them ON THE USER'S MACHINE. But > the big distros are not prepared to take the risk of combining linux and > ZFS, and distributing the resulting *derived* *work*. I would class Ubuntu as a big distribution and proxmox is also used a lot. Both have ZFS support. -- Joost
