From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([69.77.167.62] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1L4ukh-0006t4-M4 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:02:39 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 69FB4E0559; Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:02:40 +0000 (UTC) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.189]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 29C71E05EC for ; Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:02:40 +0000 (UTC) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id c7so1334482nfi.26 for ; Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:02:37 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:from:to:subject:date :user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:message-id; bh=FI+pscl2Lt59G/qzK/AEdriXxiuN+ErChQfOHy61sOE=; b=JfN9CCiwEARtuntbPFbh2jpT4LqK2oYhRm378kUYrJYNw1jlC4b/tbAZC2UNv89zmW U2Y1POEJlMqfvP+NpcxIcv52/nFrVlsnlHvYbCR3jrGgyQja8GNAKUDreim1y4sJCfz5 TRiuLqmEOpyW8gvbCwMnBazUidOYyFMTvz/lI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=from:to:subject:date:user-agent:references:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition :message-id; b=p33tsN5TFD1M8zmM7dgsc0U0C9WtPYRlu9Dga9XMBX9M2c/vJGu0XXNh6m6tDekkwz yEceqQ1JokM1I9BEhO3alchzHv/AP6Mv3gUhd0NXzgLZ2d/unc1e+i8cSinvxyqctJ9Z ZNDOu8SGKuA2ONNdrbYHkaA/Cl3YgRU3sMzBI= Received: by 10.210.79.14 with SMTP id c14mr4549689ebb.194.1227607357822; Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:02:37 -0800 (PST) Received: from nazgul.af.didata.local (dustpuppy.is.co.za [196.14.169.11]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 3sm2569761eyi.5.2008.11.25.02.02.35 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Tue, 25 Nov 2008 02:02:36 -0800 (PST) From: Alan McKinnon To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] [OT] filesystems Date: Tue, 25 Nov 2008 12:02:23 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.10 References: <1227479490.26615.47.camel@rattus> <20081124214714.GA11756@ultras> <492bc04e.sGFGs8UOthRxcYsB%Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> In-Reply-To: <492bc04e.sGFGs8UOthRxcYsB%Joerg.Schilling@fokus.fraunhofer.de> Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200811251202.23072.alan.mckinnon@gmail.com> X-Archives-Salt: 548720a2-3a74-48dc-a04a-819dabdf76fc X-Archives-Hash: beae0bd362cd320b43b36ee06f686dc7 On Tuesday 25 November 2008 11:07:26 Joerg Schilling wrote: > It ZFS was under GPL, it did not appear on FreeBSD and Mac OS X. > > What I expect from a promising new filesystem is that is may be integrated > in a large variety of Platforms. > > Note that I am a supporter of collaboration in OSS and that it is important > for me to write software in a highly portable way so anybody may use it.... > > I do not like the camp mentality. I used to be a totally-GPL fan but I changed my stance a few years back. The thing that did it for me was the TCP/IP stack. If this were not BSD licensed, it would not have been adopted as widely as it was, and we would not have an internet today. So keeping in mind that the GPL was designed to be used to create a free-standing body of free code that comprised an entire Unix-like system, I now advocate the following: Low level code that is intended to be used everywhere - on the order of filesystems, networking standards, block devices and such - ideally should be BSD licensed. Then anyone anywhere can use it. GPL in userland is fine, as apps tend to be free-standing and do not conflict with other code, hence the "mere-aggregation" clause. Kernel modules are different and cannot work this way. Expect in very unusual circumstances (eg XFS in the linux kernel) they are derivative works and the GPL kicks in. Which is fine, most people will contribute their changes back upstream anyway just like GPL demands. But GPL is incompatible with other licenses which prohibits equal two-way sharing. The easiest possible solution as I see it is to just license this low-level utility code as BSD. -- alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com