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Software Freedom Conservancy: Distributing Linux With ZFS Is Illegal (phoronix.com)
LichtSpektren writes: Phoronix reports that Bradley M. Kuhn and Karen M. Sandler at the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFS) have posted a blog post today arguing that Canonical's plan to distribute Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" with support for the ZFS file system violates the Linux kernel's GPLv2 license.
On February 18, Dustin Kirkland at Canonical wrote on his blog: "We at Canonical have conducted a legal review, including discussion with the industry's leading software freedom legal counsel, of the licenses that apply to the Linux kernel and to ZFS. And in doing so, we have concluded that we are acting within the rights granted and in compliance with their terms of both of those licenses...The CDDL cannot apply to the Linux kernel because zfs.ko is a self-contained file system module — the kernel itself is quite obviously not a derivative work of this new file system. And zfs.ko, as a self-contained file system module, is clearly not a derivative work of the Linux kernel but rather quite obviously a derivative work of OpenZFS and OpenSolaris. Equivalent exceptions have existed for many years, for various other stand alone, self-contained, non-GPL kernel modules. Our conclusion is good for Ubuntu users, good for Linux, and good for all of free and open source software."
The SFS's blog post of today states: "We are sympathetic to Canonical's frustration in this desire to easily support more features for their users. However, as set out below, we have concluded that their distribution of zfs.ko violates the GPL."
On February 18, Dustin Kirkland at Canonical wrote on his blog: "We at Canonical have conducted a legal review, including discussion with the industry's leading software freedom legal counsel, of the licenses that apply to the Linux kernel and to ZFS. And in doing so, we have concluded that we are acting within the rights granted and in compliance with their terms of both of those licenses...The CDDL cannot apply to the Linux kernel because zfs.ko is a self-contained file system module — the kernel itself is quite obviously not a derivative work of this new file system. And zfs.ko, as a self-contained file system module, is clearly not a derivative work of the Linux kernel but rather quite obviously a derivative work of OpenZFS and OpenSolaris. Equivalent exceptions have existed for many years, for various other stand alone, self-contained, non-GPL kernel modules. Our conclusion is good for Ubuntu users, good for Linux, and good for all of free and open source software."
The SFS's blog post of today states: "We are sympathetic to Canonical's frustration in this desire to easily support more features for their users. However, as set out below, we have concluded that their distribution of zfs.ko violates the GPL."
Why oh why do we have to keep shooting ourselves in the foot?
OK I'm a BSD user so, well, stones and glass houses, but even so the open source community's continuing ability to why things should not be allowed is depressing...most people in our crowd want our stuff to be USED by as many people as possible...
There's no such thing as unlimited freedom. You have to pick the freedoms you care about, and then forbid those that would violate it.
The SFC is not the owner of either of the works in question and is not the author of the license in question. They have no stake or standing in the matter.
It seems they do have a stake:
The GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers is comprised of copyright holders in the kernel, Linux, who have contributed to Linux under its license, the GPLv2. These copyright holders have formally asked Conservancy to engage in compliance efforts for their copyrights in the Linux kernel. In addition, some developers have directly assigned their copyrights on Linux to Conservancy, so Conservancy also enforces the GPL on Linux via its own copyrights in Linux.
From https://sfconservancy.org/copy...
I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you want legal advice, pay my retainer.
There is a *really* big hole in the analysis.
Linux is *not* quite GPL; it, like many others, is better understood as "quasi-GPL", or QGPL.
Since pretty much the beginning, the Linux developers approved, condoned, and encouraged binary, non-GPL modules. Standard legal analysis means that this trumps the boilerplate of the license/contract.
The second serious error is arguing about the FSF position on linking. Under the rules of legal analysis, the author of a document's opinion is weighted at pretty much nothing: the author had his chance, and later comments are irrelevant. That is, there are about 7 billion people whose opinions on interpreting it come first.
Now whether distributing Linux with that module violates Sun's CDL could be an entirely different issue; I've never looked at it.
hawk, esq.