> (I don't approve of this system, I am merely describing what I see as the status quo.)
As has been said, being a FOSS "advocate" may put you on many sides of any copyright issue.
> RIAA isn't going to waste time finding out if the recipients were planning to buy CDs otherwise. If you receive software under a license that is too restrictive for you, then there is always the option to pay the rightholder to grant you a more permissive license in exchange for money.
Your comparison fails to understand how different these claims are. First, those CDs have a price on the tin. That is -- this claim would have "actual damages" which can be readily determined. Second, you're speculating a new license for either Linux or OpenZFS is possible, but I don't think anyone imagines either is readily available given the number of rights holders. If Oracle was offering to relicense (BTW only its portion of the ZFS source) for a known and reasonable amount $X, like your CDs, then your comparison might make more sense (but read on, the offer of another license does not preclude a finding of non-infringement).
Thankfully, of course, copyright law provides for statutory damages where actual damages cannot readily be proven, as here. But those nominal/statutory damages divided up among Linux rights holders would be almost insignificant, and therefore this poster above is likely correct -- this may not be a legally cognizable injury.
While I may agree re: this poster's damages analysis, I'm not even sure that's the best form of the ZFS argument. IMHO where anyone creates a functional software interface, whether it be via game console's cart or a kernel module, fair use allows one to create to software and use that interface. Period. Your license can say whatever it wants. Your license can say "all your software now belongs to use" and IMHO it is completely unenforceable. IMHO the courts have favored software interoperability and fair use for years.
For example:
In Sega Enterprises, Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc., the court denied copyright protection for “functional requirements for compatibility with the Genesis console . . . .” Under this approach, the right of the kernel module author to create a compatible module overrides any nominal copyright infringement created when that author creates static or dynamic links to kernel code. Sega’s Genesis console had no public API whatsoever, stable or otherwise, yet the court still denied protection to these functional elements. Regardless of the status of the API or system interface required for compatibility, any parts of a program that a developer must copy — such as kernel headers, definition files, variables, or mandatory Linux kernel function calls — in order to create a Linux-compatible kernel module would not receive copyright protection.[0]
The case is much stronger re: ZFS because the court explicitly protected reverse engineering in Sega, whereas here the Linux kernel devs have
published the code to their interface.
Note, Sega even offered Accolade a license (just as we discussed the potential for an alternative license above) that would have allowed Accolade to create Sega-compatible games. Notwithstanding this offer, the court declined to find copyright infringement in Accolade’s creation of Sega-compatible games without a license.
[0]: https://www.networkworld.com/article/836041/smb-encouraging-...