Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 20th Apr 2007 19:05 UTC, submitted by Rahul
A recent discussion on the lkml examined the possibility of a Linux implementation of Sun's ZFS. It was pointed out that the file system is released under the GPL-incompatible CDDL, and that Sun has filed numerous patents to prevent ZFS from being reverse engineered. Max Yudin pointed out, "according to Jeff Bonwick's blog Sun issued 56 patents on ZFS, but I have no idea what they patented. Sorry, binary compatible ZFS reimplementation with GPL license might not be legal."
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Member since:2006-02-06
Member since:2005-09-14
Because a FUSE driver wouldn't have to link to the GPLed kernel and would consequently not present a license conflict. Also, there was already work in progress on a FUSE ZFS impl for last year's GSoC, though I have no idea how far that progressed in the end.
Update: Err, missed the actual point. The FUSE driver could, due to the lack of license issues, use the actual ZFS code, which would prevent the patent issue from cropping up.
Edited 2007-04-20 19:31 UTC
Member since:2005-07-11
Member since:2005-11-23
Member since:2006-02-06
How is it that Mac OS X and FreeBSD overcame the patents problem ? Wouldn't it be possible for Linux to do things the same way ?
Do they use binary compatible reimplementations of the FS ? If so I guess they're all in the same ship with those patents problems.
(I really doesn't know much about ZFS history and implementations, so please excuse if the answers to those questions are obvious).
Member since:2005-07-08
Ha, already under way:
http://www.wizy.org/wiki/ZFS_on_FUSE
Member since:2006-09-13
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Member since:
2007-03-16
Actually, I don't see any problem here; Instead of building a kernel driver for ZFS, build FUSE driver. It will solve the license issue, *and* will be available for multiple OSes including Linux, Mac OS X and BSD UNIX.