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."
Thread beginning with comment 232593
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Member since:
2005-07-06
The CDDL that ZFS is under has an explicit patent grant, so if you can keep the CDDL license, then you don't have a patent problem.
As mentioned, BSD doesn't really have this issue at all. CDDL is also, like MPL, a file based licensed. So, Apple is obligated to only return any changes they made to ZFS files, but aren't under any obligation to return their entire OS simply because they integrate ZFS.
Beyond perhaps some behind the scenes contracting between Apple and Sun for technical support, there need be otherwise no formal relationship between the companies.