Fedora is going to BTRFS. I guess that means it is being at least considered for RHEL 9 or 10. I can't see RH choosing ZFS unless the license is sorted out.
FWIW, SUSE is the Enterprise Linux vendor that has went "all in" on btrfs.
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Two semi-related, personal thoughts:
1. btrfs today feels a lot like reiserfs did (going on / nearly) 20 years ago.
2. I expect Oracle to -- at some point -- integrate ZFS into Oracle (Enterprise) Linux. That seems like a great way for them to win over some "converts" from RHEL.
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> Oracle owns ZFS. Or, rather, it bought Sun, which was the company which originally wrote ZFS. So, it doesn't really need to worry about the licensing issues.
Oracle owning ZFS doesn't magically absolve them of risk however it does reduce the risk. But with ZFS being open source, another contributor might have a claim if Oracle were to breach the CDDL license with code written by said contributor (similar to the SCO vs UNIX lawsuits of yesteryear).
To get around this Oracle would need to contact all 3rd party contributors and get the to agree to a license change. This would, in all practicality, then be reflected in a new release (like the GP suggested).
However it is now even more complicated than that because OpenZFS (which is what Linux runs) has diverged from ZFS (which Oracle maintain). So while Oracle would need to agree to any changes in the licensing of OpenZFS (as there's still Oracle code present in OpenZFS), Oracle are not the ones maintaining it and nor could they ship their own version of ZFS as Linux kernel modules to answer any concerns with either OpenZFS licensing nor compatibility with other Linuxes running OpenZFS.
There is no "just" in "just release it under [another license]". I'd written a detailed rebuttal of why it's not that simple in the GP post to yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24331156
If Oracle wanted to ship ZFS on Linux, they would presumably port over their own version and never involve the OpenZFS team. However, Oracle created btrfs, and seem content to stick with it.
OpenZFS is a fork of ZFS rather than a reimplementation so I'd be very surprised if there wasn't any Oracle code in it (unless you're making a distinction between Sun and Oracle but legally speaking that would all still be owned by Oracle, hence why I didn't make that same distinction myself).
> If Oracle wanted to ship ZFS on Linux, they would presumably port over their own version and never involve the OpenZFS team.
Porting in this case isn't a simple task as there's a lot of "Solarisims" in ZFS that had to be worked around with the Linux port (ZoL -- ZFS on Linux -- didn't happen over night). Plus, and as I'd said earlier, ZFS and OpenZFS have diverged in terms of supported features so a ZFS volume wouldn't be compatible with an OpenZFS volume. I guess this wouldn't bother Oracle since, like most orgs of that size, they have no qualms with creating vendor lock ins. But it certainly wouldn't do much to sell Oracle Linux to the wider ZoL community.
The reason the distinction is important is that Sun released that code under the CDDL. If Oracle wanted to somehow claim it couldn't be used, it would require a massive lawsuit that would basically be against the concept of free software.
I don't understand why that would be necessary. CDDL (and equivalent) licenses don't transfer ownership of IP (intellectual property) to the public domain, they only outline usage and distribution of the code and compiled artefacts. When Oracle bought Sun, they acquired Sun's IP (amongst other things) -- hence why they could go after Google with regards to their Java IP despite Java being a Sun Microsystems creation. ZFS isn't any different, it might have been distributed under a CDDL license but since Oracle now own the copyright for ZFS code they can legally re-license that code base under another license if they wished. So Sun doesn't factor into the equation any more since what was Sun's is now owned by Oracle.
It's worth noting that you do occasionally see open source projects change their software license years after their initial release. So this isn't an untested theory.
From my understanding of open source projects released under a new license, they often can create a similar fork at the license change time where a version exists under the old license too. The exception is if they use the GPL version that allows updating the license
Nobody is suggesting they retract older version. In fact the exact opposite has been said on multiple occasions: any new license would be signified by a semver (semantic version) bump. So you're arguing against a point that was never made in the first place.
> getting rid of OpenZFS altogether
OpenZFS code would be unaffected because it's forked from a version prior to the semver re-license bump.
> From my understanding of open source projects released under a new license, they often can create a similar fork at the license change time where a version exists under the old license too.
Fork or semver bump. Which is exactly what I was talking about. Also notice that what you described there contradicts what you said would happen ("getting rid of OpenZFS") in literally the same comment.
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If Oracle own the copyright then Oracle can re-license. They'd have to bump the version number and the previous versions with the older license would forever remain CDDL. But legally they can do it and it wouldn't affect OpenZFS licensing (aside that OpenZFS might then no longer be able to incorporate ZFS code -- assuming ZFS's new license is incompatible with CDDL. But things start to get very murky down that road.)
My argument has been that Oracle can't do this the entire time, but that's why its unfair to say there is Oracle code in OpenZFS. It makes it sound like Oracle has some power over OpenZFS, which is just not the case.
No it wasn't. You kept bringing Sun Microsystems into the discussion and they're not relevant regardless of whether we're discussing ZFS or OpenZFS because Oracle own Suns IP. Moreover, and I can't stress this enough, nobody ever suggested OpenZFS would be "got rid of" except for yourself! You created that straw man argument.
> that's why its unfair to say there is Oracle code in OpenZFS. It makes it sound like Oracle has some power over OpenZFS, which is just not the case.
It's not unfair to say that because that is the literal truth. And I was very clear about not only the distinction between ZFS and OpenZFS but also the limited scope in which Oracle could control OpenZFS (if the OpenZFS guys want to re-license they'd still need Oracle's approval for any Sun IP (which Oracle now own) that remains within OpenZFS code).
Claiming that Oracle code doesn't exist within OpenZFS or that Oracle doesn't still have a say with regards to OpenZFS's licence would be as ignorant as saying Oracle could "get rid of OpenZFS".
I suggest re-reading my initial comment that sparked this discussion. I thought it was pretty clear about the distinction between ZFS and OpenZFS and about how much/little control Oracle have over the licenses of each.
All that aside, one comment you made elsewhere did interest me: whether Oracle could sue Canonical due to copyright grounds with Oracle code in Linux. I don't know GPL well enough to know if this is possible but it's a truly terrifying thought given the amount of contributors to Linux and the prevalence of Linux in propitiatory systems like phones, routers and other places that might contain closed SoC modules.
Yes when it became apparent that BTRFS was not ready RH did that. It was a slight surprise when it happened if I remember correctly.
I said RHEL v9 OR 10. I guess 9 is unlikely but 10 is a number of years off. If BTFS is a sucess on Fedora and stable then they will surely consider it. That is the point of Fedora...
I would agree with you. Fedora adopting stuff does not mean RHEL will include it, but if it's successful/popular on Fedora then Red Hat will surely be paying attention. RHEL tries to follow Fedora as closely as possible, I would imagine this is a shot for btrfs, but certainly no guarantee.
Btrfs goes though a rapid development; so Redhat has to backport everything to their ancient 3.10 (RHEL7) kernel all the time. That's a lot of work.
Fedora, on the other hand, uses current kernels. They do not have to do this work.
Redhat also cannot choose ZFS while in the license limbo; that's why they push for Stratis.