On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 9:53 PM, Billy Crook <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 19:34, ivo welch <[email protected]> wrote: >> curiosity question---could btrfs be licensed in multiple ways to allow >> Apple and other vendors to adopt it? > > Great question, Ivo. > > And it turns out, btrfs is already licensed to permit commercial use, > integration into other products, and resale. > > The license of btrfs isn't stopping Apple or Microsoft from using > btrfs. All licenses have terms (You should read the terms on some of > Apple and Microsoft's software), but so long as they don't violate any > terms, they are welcome to use all parts of the btrfs code for their > corporation's profit, and their customer's benefit.
... and while some will certainly argue one way or another, this is a case where (IMO) the code for btrfs (as a module) is clearly distinct from the OSX kernel (as it was not even designed for it originally) and would not constitute far reaching public release of Apple IP ... though tbh i know nothing about OSX kernel and whether it support things like dynamic modules, so i could be mistaken ... ... but im confident there is a way Apple could wire it up so IP release could be very small or nonexistent. or maintain a "port" if they so wished. the real question is whether or not they would even desire using it with infrastructure around HFS+/etc ... in my observations Apple and friends are incredibly ... ehm ... selective -- the hardware and everything above it *must* have the `Seal of Approval` -- maybe to reduce/isolate their problem pool or maintain it's clique-crazed "chic" aura :-), i dont know, but it's not for the end-user's flexibility -- that's for sure. the glaring example to me is virtually the entire mobile/handheld/device industry deciding on micro-USB as the power+data xchange connection *except* one infamous product line ... but meh, who really knows anyway; it certainly would be incredibly cool to have a common denominator greater than FAT, especially since commodity flash chips are 8-16GB now. -- C Anthony -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-btrfs" in the body of a message to [email protected] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
