Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Suggestions for backup scheme?

[Wols Lists <antlists@youngman.org.uk>]

On 08/02/2024 06:32, J. Roeleveld wrote:
>> Personally, I'd go the MPL2 route, but that's my choice. It might not
>> suit you. But to achieve what you want, you need a copyleft, GPL-style
>> licence.

> I'll have a look at that one.

Basically, each individual source file is copyleft, but not the work as 
a whole. So if anybody copies/modifies YOUR work, they have to 
distribute your work with their binary, but this requirement does not 
extend to everyone else's work.
> 
> Maybe not included fully into the kernel, but there is nothing preventing it
> to be packaged with a Linux distribution.
> It's just the hostility from Linus Torvalds and Greg Kroah-Hartman against ZFS
> causing the issues.
> 
> See the following post for a clear description (much better written than I
> can):
> https://eerielinux.wordpress.com/2019/01/28/zfs-and-gpl-terror-how-much-freedom-is-there-in-linux/
> 
> Especially the lkml thread linked from there:
> https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20190110182413.GA6932@kroah.com/
> 
>> 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.

> 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.

What Linus, and the kernel devs, and that crowd *think* is irrelevant. 
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.

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*.

Cheers,
Wol