Bug#686447: Licence issues and non-issues with ZoL: CDDL and GPL
On Aug 29, 2014, at 4:49 AM, Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez wrote: > On 27/08/14 14:33, Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez wrote: >> Maybe we could share a RFC of the summary here when we think is ready, in >> order to double-check our understanding of the license stuff and get more >> feedback about it. > > On 27/08/14 16:38, Andreas Dilger wrote: >> Hi Carlos, >> I've been dealing with ZoL and the GPL/CDDL issues for a number >> of years for the Lustre filesystem. IANAL, but know quite a bit about >> these issues so I'd be happy to help out if I can. > > Thanks for the offer to help. > > Aron has posted our summary about the situation [1]. If you want to comment > on it that would be great. In general I think this is a very well written summary of the issues. I think it is a disservice to your argument that you equate CDDL with proprietary binary licenses such as those used for NVidia or Broadcom. I would definitely seek clarification of what part of the "spirit" of the GPL is being violated. I think the most important point is that CDDL is an OSI-approved _open_source_ license, which eliminates IMHO the biggest objection to proprietary binary modules, since the source for ZFS is available for debugging, modification, and redistribution. The CDDL is actually a permissive license and even grants patent indemnification for any patents embodied in the original ZFS code (similar to GPLv3). It is the GPL that restricts distributing with CDDL code and not the reverse (CDDL 3.6 explicitly allows this). A little-known fact is that the CDDL even permits releasing the executable under a different license from the CDDL (CDDL 3.5). For example, it would be conceivable to distribute the module under the GPL, but that raises the question of what does a GPL license on an executable mean? Would this expose the distributor to e.g. patent license issues because it is no longer covered by the CDDL? > Regards. > > > [1] http://mid.gmane.org/20140829014229.GA9572@aron-laptop Cheers, Andreas signature.asc Description: Message signed with OpenPGP using GPGMail
Bug#686447: Licence issues and non-issues with ZoL: CDDL and GPL
On 27/08/14 14:33, Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez wrote: > Maybe we could share a RFC of the summary here when we think is ready, in > order > to double-check our understanding of the license stuff and get more feedback > about it. [...] On 27/08/14 16:38, Andreas Dilger wrote: > Hi Carlos, > I've been dealing with ZoL and the GPL/CDDL issues for a number > of years for the Lustre filesystem. IANAL, but know quite a bit about > these issues so I'd be happy to help out if I can. Thanks for the offer to help. Aron has posted our summary about the situation [1]. If you want to comment on it that would be great. Regards. [1] http://mid.gmane.org/20140829014229.GA9572@aron-laptop signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Bug#686447: Licence issues and non-issues with ZoL: CDDL and GPL (was: Re: [zfs-discuss] [Pkg-zfsonlinux-devel] zfs-linux_0.6.2-1_amd64.changes REJECTED)
On 26/08/14 23:00, Paul Richards Tagliamonte wrote: > Hello, ZFS on Linux maintainers, > > At a recent ftpteam meeting we discussed this package, and what to do about > it. > > Our consensus was that this package appears to violate the spirit of the GPL > at > minimum, and may cause legal problems. Judges often interpret documents as > they're > intended to read, hacks to comply with the letter but not the intent are not > looked upon fondly. This may be a hard thing for technical folks to accept, > but > in legal cases one usually isn't dealing with technical people. > > As such, this package has been rejected with the following notes: > > * Please take care to fix your naming issues. Please talk with the kFreeBSD > folks >on how to best handle the namespace. The kFreeBSD folks had these names >first, it's up to them how they're used. > > * We recommend that the DPL put a question to our lawyers, providing a full > and >complete background on the situation. (We are happy to help reviewing it > before >it gets sent off). We will defer judgement on the legality of distributing > ZoL >in Debian to them. > > Thanks, > Paul, on behalf of the ftpteam > We (the Debian ZoL package maintainers) have been talking about this. The Debian FTP Team wants us to write a summary of the situation regarding the license stuff describing how ZoL avoided violating the combination of GPL and CDDL. Then they may forward that to DPL (Lucas) and then to SPI's lawyer. They would be OK to accept the package if the lawyer says yes. We are already writing this summary. If someone wants to help please send me or Aron an e-mail. Maybe we could share a RFC of the summary here when we think is ready, in order to double-check our understanding of the license stuff and get more feedback about it. signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
