It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about this. What''s the latest version of publicly released ZFS? Has oracle made it closed-source moving forward? Nexenta ... openindiana ... etc ... Are they all screwed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101210/36c9f604/attachment.html>
On Fri, 10 Dec 2010, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:> > It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about this.? What''s the latest version of publicly > released ZFS?? Has oracle made it closed-source moving forward?Nice troll. Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
On 12/10/10 09:54, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:> On Fri, 10 Dec 2010, Edward Ned Harvey wrote: > >> >> It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about this. >> What''s the latest version of publicly >> released ZFS? Has oracle made it closed-source moving forward? > > Nice troll. > > BobTotally! But is this really happening?
On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 5:31 AM, Edward Ned Harvey <opensolarisisdeadlongliveopensolaris at nedharvey.com> wrote:> It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about this. > What''s the latest version of publicly released ZFS?? Has oracle made it > closed-source moving forward? > > Nexenta ... openindiana ... etc ... Are they all screwed?ZFSv28 is available for FreeBSD 9-CURRENT. We won''t know until after Oracle releases Solaris 11 whether or not they''ll live up to their promise to open the source to ZFSv31. Until Solaris 11 is released, there''s really not much point in debating it. -- Freddie Cash fjwcash at gmail.com
We have ZFS version 28. Whether we ever get another open source update of ZFS from *Oracle* is at this point doubtful. However, I will point out that there are a lot of former Oracle engineers, including both inventors of ZFS and many of the people who have worked on it over the years, who are no longer part of Oracle. A number of those people have committed to working on ZFS related projects outside of Oracle, and I think ZFS will continue to evolve on its own in the open. We''ll have more to say on the matter early next year, I think. -----Original Message----- From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org on behalf of Edward Ned Harvey Sent: Fri 12/10/2010 5:31 AM To: zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org Subject: [zfs-discuss] ZFS ... open source moving forward? It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about this. What''s the latest version of publicly released ZFS? Has oracle made it closed-source moving forward? Nexenta ... openindiana ... etc ... Are they all screwed? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101210/8983351d/attachment.html>
> From: Bob Friesenhahn [mailto:bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us] > > > It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about this.?What''s> the latest version of publicly > > released ZFS?? Has oracle made it closed-source moving forward? > > Nice troll.Are you kidding? 6 months ago, and 1 year ago, people were flaming all over the place and speculating all sorts of rubbish. But it''s long enough now that we should have a good idea what to expect moving forward. Sol 11 express has been out for a while now. Many other projects (SGE in particular) were formerly open source, and apparently no longer. Not everybody wants to pay for solaris etc. It''s a valid question. Do you have any information? Or you just want to be a jerk and call names pointlessly?
On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 8:54 AM, Bob Friesenhahn < bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> wrote:> On Fri, 10 Dec 2010, Edward Ned Harvey wrote: > > >> It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about this. >> What''s the latest version of publicly >> released ZFS? Has oracle made it closed-source moving forward? >> > > Nice troll. > > Bob > -- > Bob Friesenhahn > bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ > GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ >I''m not sure how it''s trolling. There have been 0 public statements I''ve seen from Oracle on their future plans for what was opensolaris. A leaked internal memo is NOT official company policy. Until I see source or an official statement, I''m not holding my breath. --Tim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101210/f97baf0a/attachment-0001.html>
On 12/10/2010 10:21 AM, Tim Cook wrote:> > > On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 8:54 AM, Bob Friesenhahn > <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us <mailto:bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us>> > wrote: > > On Fri, 10 Dec 2010, Edward Ned Harvey wrote: > > > It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything > about this. What''s the latest version of publicly > released ZFS? Has oracle made it closed-source moving forward? > > > Nice troll. > > Bob > -- > Bob Friesenhahn > bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us > <mailto:bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us>, > http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ > GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ > > > I''m not sure how it''s trolling. There have been 0 public statements > I''ve seen from Oracle on their future plans for what was opensolaris. > A leaked internal memo is NOT official company policy. Until I see > source or an official statement, I''m not holding my breath. > > --TimIt *is* a good question, given the Debacle around OpenSolaris releases. The last update I see to the ZFS public tree is 29 Oct 2010. Which, I *think*, is about the time that the fork for the Solaris 11 Express snapshot was taken. Given that there obviously was some time taken to stabilizing the release candidate, and the US holiday season, I suspect that it''s just a matter of not having the ZFS tree source updated due to other time pressures. I think that we can wait until early January before panicking. :-) -Erik [Obdisclaimer: I have no inside knowledge about this, and don''t speak for Oracle. All statements are derived from publicly-available information] -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101210/399c6149/attachment.html>
On 11/12/2010 00:07, Erik Trimble wrote:> > The last update I see to the ZFS public tree is 29 Oct 2010. Which, > I *think*, is about the time that the fork for the Solaris 11 Express > snapshot was taken. >I don''t think this is the case. Although all the files show modification date of 29 Oct 2010 at src.opensolaris.org they are still old versions from August, at least the ones I checked. See http://src.opensolaris.org/source/history/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/uts/common/fs/zfs/ the mercurial gate doesn''t have any updates either. Best regards, Robert Milkowski -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101211/d82030cc/attachment.html>
Casper.Dik at Sun.COM
2010-Dec-11 11:59 UTC
[zfs-discuss] ZFS ... open source moving forward?
ransfer-encoding: 7BIT> >On 11/12/2010 00:07, Erik Trimble wrote: >> >> The last update I see to the ZFS public tree is 29 Oct 2010. Which, >> I *think*, is about the time that the fork for the Solaris 11 Express >> snapshot was taken. >> > >I don''t think this is the case. >Although all the files show modification date of 29 Oct 2010 at >src.opensolaris.org they are still old versions from August, at least >the ones I checked. > >See >http://src.opensolaris.org/source/history/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/uts/common/fs/zfs/ > >the mercurial gate doesn''t have any updates either.Correct; the last public push was on 2010/8/18. Casper
On 12/11/2010 3:59 AM, Casper.Dik at Sun.COM wrote:> ransfer-encoding: 7BIT >> On 11/12/2010 00:07, Erik Trimble wrote: >>> The last update I see to the ZFS public tree is 29 Oct 2010. Which, >>> I *think*, is about the time that the fork for the Solaris 11 Express >>> snapshot was taken. >>> >> I don''t think this is the case. >> Although all the files show modification date of 29 Oct 2010 at >> src.opensolaris.org they are still old versions from August, at least >> the ones I checked. >> >> See >> http://src.opensolaris.org/source/history/onnv/onnv-gate/usr/src/uts/common/fs/zfs/ >> >> the mercurial gate doesn''t have any updates either. > Correct; the last public push was on 2010/8/18. > > CasperHmm. In that case, can I be the first to say "PANIC! RUN FOR THE HILLS!" :-) -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)
2010/12/10 Freddie Cash <fjwcash at gmail.com>:> On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 5:31 AM, Edward Ned Harvey > <opensolarisisdeadlongliveopensolaris at nedharvey.com> wrote: >> It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about this. >> What''s the latest version of publicly released ZFS?? Has oracle made it >> closed-source moving forward? >> >> Nexenta ... openindiana ... etc ... Are they all screwed? > > ZFSv28 is available for FreeBSD 9-CURRENT. > > We won''t know until after Oracle releases Solaris 11 whether or not > they''ll live up to their promise to open the source to ZFSv31. ?Until > Solaris 11 is released, there''s really not much point in debating it.And if they don''t, it will be Sad, both in terms of useful code not being available to a wide community to review and amend, as in terms of Oracle not really getting the point about open source development. -- Frank Van Damme No part of this copyright message may be reproduced, read or seen, dead or alive or by any means, including but not limited to telepathy without the benevolence of the author.
On Dec 11, 2010, at 14:15, Frank Van Damme wrote:> 2010/12/10 Freddie Cash <fjwcash at gmail.com>: >> On Fri, Dec 10, 2010 at 5:31 AM, Edward Ned Harvey >> <opensolarisisdeadlongliveopensolaris at nedharvey.com> wrote: >>> It''s been a while since I last heard anybody say anything about >>> this. >>> What''s the latest version of publicly released ZFS? Has oracle >>> made it >>> closed-source moving forward? >>> >>> Nexenta ... openindiana ... etc ... Are they all screwed? >> >> ZFSv28 is available for FreeBSD 9-CURRENT. >> >> We won''t know until after Oracle releases Solaris 11 whether or not >> they''ll live up to their promise to open the source to ZFSv31. Until >> Solaris 11 is released, there''s really not much point in debating it. > > And if they don''t, it will be Sad, both in terms of useful code not > being available to a wide community to review and amend, as in terms > of Oracle not really getting the point about open source development.I think it''s a known fact that Oracle hasn''t got the point of open source development. Forks ahoy! http://www.jroller.com/niclas/entry/apache_leaves_jcp_ec
>>>>> "et" == Erik Trimble <erik.trimble at oracle.com> writes:et> In that case, can I be the first to say "PANIC! RUN FOR THE et> HILLS!" Erik I thought most people already understood pushing to the public hg gate had stopped at b147, hence Illumos and OpenIndiana. it''s not that you''re wrong, just that you should be in the hills by now if you started out running. the S11 Express release without source and with its new, more-onerous license than SXCE is new dismal news, and the problems on other projects and the waves of smart people leaving might be even more dismal for opensolaris since in the past there was a lot of integration and a lot of forward progress, but what you were specifically asking about dates in hg was already included in the old bad news AFAIK. And anyway there was never complete source code, nor source for all new work (drivers), nor source for the stable branch, which has always been a serious problem. The good news to my view is that Linux may actually be only about one year behind (and sometimes ahead) on the non-ZFS features in Solaris. FreeBSD is missing basically all of this, ex jails are really not as thorough as VServer or LXC, but Linux is basically there already: * Xen support is better. Oracle is sinking Solaris Xen support in favour of some old Oracle Xen kit based on Linux, I think? which is disruptive and annoying for me, because I originally used OpenSolaris Xen to get some isolation from the churn of Linux Xen. but it means there''s a fully-free-software path that''s not even less annoying a transition than what Oracle''s offering through partially-free uncertain-future tools. * Infiniband support in Linux was always good. They don''t have a single COMSTAR system which is too bad, but they have SCST for SRP (non-IP RDMA SCSI, the COMSTAR one that people say works with VMWare), and stgt for iSER (the one that works with the Solaris initiator). * instead of Crossbow they have RPS and RFS, which give some performance boost with ordinary network cards, not just with 10gig ones with flow caches. My understanding''s hazy but I think, with an ordinary card, you still have to take an IPI, but it will touch hardly any of the packet on the wrongCPU so you can still take advantage of per-core caches hot with TCP-flow-specific structures. I''m not a serious enough developer to know whether RPS+RFS is more or less thorough than the Crossbow-branded stuff, but it was committed to mainline at about the same time as Crossbow. * Dreamhost is already selling Linux zones based on VServer and has been for many years, so there *is* a zones alternative on Linux, and better yet unlike the incompletely-delivered and eventually removed lx brand, on Linux you get Linux zones with Linux packages and nginx working with epoll and sendfile (on solaris, for me eventport works but sendfile does not). There''s supposedly a total rewrite of VServer in the works called LXC, so maybe that will be the truly good one. It may take them longer to get sysadmin tools that match zonecfg/zoneadm, but the path is set. * LTTng is an attempt at something dtrace-like. It''s still experimental, but has the same idea of large libraries of probes, programs cannot tell if they''re being traced or not, and relatively sophisticated bundled analysis tools. http://multivax.blogspot.com/2010/11/introduction-to-linux-tracing-toolkit.html -- LTTng linux dtrace competitor The only thing missing is ZFS. To me it looks like a good replacement for that is years away. I''m not excited about ocfs, or about kernel module ZFS ports taking advantage of the Linus kmod ``interpretation'''' and the grub GPLv3 patent protection. Instead I''m hoping they skip this stage and style of storage and go straight to something Lustre-like that supports snapshots. I''ve got my eye on ceph, and on Lustre itself of course because of the IB support. ex perhaps in the end you will have 64 - 256MB of atftpd-provided initramfs which never goes away where init and sshd and libc and all the complicated filesystem-related userspace lives, so there is no more problems of running /usr/sbin/zpool off of a ZFS---you will always be able to administrate your system even if every ``disk'''' is hung (or if cluster access is disrupted). and there will not be a complexity difference between a laptop with local disks and cluster storage---everything will be the full-on complicated version. I feel ZFS doesn''t scale small enough for phones, nor big enough for what people are already doing in data centers, so why not give up on small completely and waste even more RAM and complexity in the laptop case? and one of the most interesting appnotes to me about ZFS is this one relling posted long ago: http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/820-7821/girgb?a=view which is an extremely limited analog of what ceph and Lustre do, where compute and storage nodes do not necessarily need to be separate, and the storage nodes are interconnected by Ethernet or IB not by a dedicated fabric managed by proprietary not-introspectable software like SAS. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 304 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101211/cb95e1fd/attachment-0001.bin>
> From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss- > bounces at opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Frank Van Damme > > And if they don''t, it will be Sad, both in terms of useful code not > being available to a wide community to review and amend, as in terms > of Oracle not really getting the point about open source development.The thing that''s really strange is ... BTRFS. Correct me if I''m wrong, but oracle is and always has been a major contributor there? ''Course, for all I know, it could be sabotage. ;-) I mean ... BTRFS ... Is years away from what I would be comfortable deploying in production... But if you''ve got a huge compute cluster, what are you supposed to do? Pay for solaris on every one? Of course that''s ridiculous. Of course in such a situation, you want the "centos" instead of the "rhel." But what if there was a major closed-source feature unavailable in centos or openindiana? Problem is... Oracle is now the only company in the world who''s immune to netapp lawsuit over ZFS. Even if IBM and Dell and HP wanted to band together and fund the open-source development of ZFS and openindiana... It''s a real risk. I guess, all things considered, the price for solaris is entirely reasonable when you''re building a fileserver. It''s really just desktops and laptops and compute farms which suffer.
Edward Ned Harvey <opensolarisisdeadlongliveopensolaris at nedharvey.com> wrote:> Problem is... Oracle is now the only company in the world who''s immune to netapp lawsuit over ZFS. Even if IBM and Dell and HP wanted to band together and fund the open-source development of ZFS and openindiana... It''s a real risk.I don''t believe that there is a significant risk as the NetApp patents are invalid because of prior art. As mentioned before, The basic ideas of Copy On Write filesystems which include methods to find the most recent Filesystem SuperBlock in such a case and the derived methods to create "cheap" snapshots have not been invented by NetApp but this happened years before NetApp came up with such a filesystem. I have no knowledge of systems that be older than my WOFS but I developed the WOFS basics in 1989 and made the implementation in 1989 and 1990, the Dimplma Thesis was published in May 1991. Those basics from WAFS and ZFS are no more than a reimplementation of already existing ideas. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 3:08 PM, Joerg Schilling < Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:> Edward Ned Harvey <opensolarisisdeadlongliveopensolaris at nedharvey.com> > wrote: > > > Problem is... Oracle is now the only company in the world who''s immune > to netapp lawsuit over ZFS. Even if IBM and Dell and HP wanted to band > together and fund the open-source development of ZFS and openindiana... > It''s a real risk. > > I don''t believe that there is a significant risk as the NetApp patents are > invalid because of prior art. > >You are not a court of law, and that statement has not been tested. It is your opinion and nothing more. I''d appreciate if every time you repeated that statement, you''d preface it with "in my opinion" so you don''t have people running around believing what they''re doing is safe. I''d hope they''d be smart enough to consult with a lawyer, but it''s probably better to just not spread unsubstantiated rumor in the first place. --Tim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101211/16e88dff/attachment.html>
Tim Cook <tim at cook.ms> wrote:> > I don''t believe that there is a significant risk as the NetApp patents are > > invalid because of prior art. > > > > > You are not a court of law, and that statement has not been tested. It is > your opinion and nothing more. I''d appreciate if every time you repeated > that statement, you''d preface it with "in my opinion" so you don''t have > people running around believing what they''re doing is safe. I''d hope they''d > be smart enough to consult with a lawyer, but it''s probably better to just > not spread unsubstantiated rumor in the first place.If you have substancial information on why NetApp may rightfully own a patent that is essential for ZFS, I would be interested to get this information. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 5:17 PM, Joerg Schilling < Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de> wrote:> Tim Cook <tim at cook.ms> wrote: > > > > I don''t believe that there is a significant risk as the NetApp patents > are > > > invalid because of prior art. > > > > > > > > You are not a court of law, and that statement has not been tested. It > is > > your opinion and nothing more. I''d appreciate if every time you repeated > > that statement, you''d preface it with "in my opinion" so you don''t have > > people running around believing what they''re doing is safe. I''d hope > they''d > > be smart enough to consult with a lawyer, but it''s probably better to > just > > not spread unsubstantiated rumor in the first place. > > If you have substancial information on why NetApp may rightfully own a > patent > that is essential for ZFS, I would be interested to get this information. > > J?rg > >The initial filing was public record. It has been posted on this mailing list already, and you responded to those posts. I''m not sure why you''re acting like you''re oblivious to the case. Regardless, I''ll answer your rhetorical question: http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20080529163415471 You BELIEVING the are wrong doesn''t make it so, sorry. Until it is settled in a court of law, or the patent office invalidates their patents, you are making unsubstantiated claims. --Tim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101211/c4176a9e/attachment.html>
On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 13:22:28 -0500, Miles Nordin wrote: : The only thing missing is ZFS. To me it looks like a good replacement : for that is years away. I''m not excited about ocfs, or about kernel : module ZFS ports taking advantage of the Linus kmod ``interpretation'''' : and the grub GPLv3 patent protection. I''m of the opinion that that''s a nice hack that Oracle won''t object to, right up until some other project decides to try and use it. IANAL, don''t work for Oracle, never worked for Sun, and have no financial interest in the outcome, and that''s nothing but a wild guess, but I''d love someone to take the codebase and produce something commercial with it. I''ll just stand back and watch, from a safe distance. It''ll be worth it. I''m sure I''d learn a lot. -- Dickon Hood Due to digital rights management, my .sig is temporarily unavailable. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. We apologise for the inconvenience in the meantime. No virus was found in this outgoing message as I didn''t bother looking.
On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 00:17:08 +0100, Joerg Schilling wrote: : If you have substancial information on why NetApp may rightfully own a patent : that is essential for ZFS, I would be interested to get this information. Trivial: the US patent system is fundamentally broken, so owning patents on more or less anything is possible, whether inforceable or not. The act of defending against an invalid patent costs a fortune, so most entities aren''t willing to try. Easier to avoid. You know this, I''m sure. -- Dickon Hood Due to digital rights management, my .sig is temporarily unavailable. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. We apologise for the inconvenience in the meantime. No virus was found in this outgoing message as I didn''t bother looking.
> From: Joerg Schilling [mailto:Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de] > > > Problem is... Oracle is now the only company in the world who''s immune > to netapp lawsuit over ZFS. Even if IBM and Dell and HP wanted to band > together and fund the open-source development of ZFS and openindiana... > It''s a real risk. > > I don''t believe that there is a significant risk as the NetApp patents are > invalid because of prior art.I agree, for that and many other reasons. But it doesn''t matter what I think. It only matters what Steve Jobs and others think, and it also matters how much it would cost them to make their point in court.
On Sat, 11 Dec 2010, Tim Cook wrote:> You are not a court of law, and that statement has not been tested. > ?It is your opinion and nothing more. ?I''d appreciate if every time > you repeated that statement, you''d preface it with "in my opinion" > so you don''t have people running around believing what they''re doing > is safe.Does someone have an opinion which is considered sound enough to not be considered "in my opinion"? There is the US Supreme Court but their opinion only applies to the USA. Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
On Sun, Dec 12, 2010 at 6:41 PM, Bob Friesenhahn < bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> wrote:> On Sat, 11 Dec 2010, Tim Cook wrote: > > You are not a court of law, and that statement has not been tested. It is >> your opinion and nothing more. I''d appreciate if every time you repeated >> that statement, you''d preface it with "in my opinion" so you don''t have >> people running around believing what they''re doing is safe. >> > > Does someone have an opinion which is considered sound enough to not be > considered "in my opinion"? There is the US Supreme Court but their opinion > only applies to the USA. > > Bob > >Yes, only the USA, which is where all relevant companies in this discussion do business. On a mailing list centered around a company founded in and doing business in the USA. So what exactly is your point? --Tim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101212/7631c948/attachment.html>
Le 13/12/2010 01:56, Tim Cook a ?crit :> Yes, only the USA, which is where all relevant companies in this > discussion do business. On a mailing list centered around a company > founded in and doing business in the USA. So what exactly is your point?Don''t you forget that these companies also do much of their business in foreign countries (Europe, Asia) where software patenting is not allowed, where American law is not applicable, and where they have competitors? And do you really believe that this mailing list is only devoted to (US) Americans just because the products originated in the US, and the vernacular is English? -- ?ditions de l''?ge d''Or ? Stanley G. Weinbaum http://www.lulu.com/robert_soubie
>>>>> "rs" == Robert Soubie <robert.soubie at free.fr> writes:rs> Don''t you forget that these companies also do much of their rs> business in foreign countries (Europe, Asia) where software rs> patenting is not allowed, dated myth. software patents do exist in europe, and the EPO has issued them. Fewer are issued, and then there''s more enforceability question because unlke US, Europe has true federalism, but they still exist. If you google for ''software patents europe'' there is stuff explaining this on the first page. The EU patent debate seems to me about fighting attempts to globally homogenize patents so that mountains of new patents would suddenly become valid in Europe, and companies could jurisdiction-shop so you would lose democratic control of the system''s future. It''s definitely not as simple or as good as ``preserve the status quo of no software patents.'''' The European status quo is already not good enough to be safe. It''s just vastly better than the future WIPO ASSO wants to bring you. rs> where American law is not applicable, Unfortunately I think American law is always applicable because it seems patent law lets you sue almost anyone you like---the guy who wrote it, the company that distributed it, the customer who bought it. Only one has to be American, so American patents can be monetized with few Americans involved. When companies are conducting business negotiations based on the threat of lawsuit rather than the result, these suits don''t have to get very far for the blackmail to translate into ``value.'''' If there are really European companies opting out of the American market entirely because of patents, I think that''s fantastic, but it doesn''t seem very plausible with software where you want a big market more than anything. rs> And do you really believe that this mailing list is only rs> devoted to (US) Americans just because the products originated rs> in the US, and the vernacular is English? your rage against hegemony or imperialism or empire or whatever you want to whine about this week is misplaced here: if you have a problem with American attitude or with the political landscape of the world, fine, that''s smart, me too, whatever, but it''s got zero to do with the complication patents add to an Oracle-free ZFS. Yeah it''s really American companies doing almost all this work (sorry, proud Europe!), but anyway being European doesn''t mean you can ignore American patents because even the (unlikely?) best case of suddenly losing the entire American market while suffering no loss from a judgement is still bad enough to kill a company. What''s on-topic is: * when do the CDDL patent protections apply? to deals between Oracle and Netapp? or is it only protection against Oracle patents? I think the latter, but then, which Oracle patents? Suppose: + Oracle patents something needed ZFS crypto + Oracle publishes the promised yet-to-be-delivered zfs-crypto paper that''s thorough enough to write a compatible implementation + Oracle makes no further ZFS source releases, ever + Nexenta reimplements zfs-crypto and releases it CDDL with the rest of ZFS + Oracle sues Nexenta. Oracle uses ``discovery'''' to get exhaustive Nexenta customer list. Oracle sues users of Nexenta. Oracle monetizes ``Nexenta indemnification pack'''' patent licenses and blackmails Nexenta''s customers. CDDL was meant to create a space that appeared to be safe from the last point. But CDDL patent stuff is no help here, I think? so, in effect, patents reduce the software freedoms given by CDDL because, once you fork whatever partial source Oracle deems fit to distribute, you suffer increasing risk of stepping onto an (Oracle-placed!) patent landmine. * AIUI Oracle has distributed grub with zfs patches, and grub is GPLv3. Is this true? If so, GPLv3 includes stuff to extend patent deals, which was added becuase GPLv3 was written under the ominous spectre of the Microsoft-Novell Linux indemnification deal. Does GPLv3 grub extend any of the Netapp deal to those patented algorithms which are used within grub? The GPLv3 is supposed to do some of this, but I don''t know how much. Is it extended only to grub users for use in grub, or can the patented stuff in grub be used anywhere by anyone who can get a copy of grub: download GPLv3 grub, then use CDDL ZFS in a Linux kmod with Oracle-provided immunity from any Netapp suit related to a ZFS patent used also in grub? This sounds totally unrealistic to me, so I would guess the GPLv3 protection would be much less, but then what is it? And anyway, though GPLv3 is meant to mandatorily extend private patent deals, how can any patent protection from the Netapp deal be extended when the deal is secret? Don''t you need some basis to force disclosure of the deal, and some way to define ``all relevant deals''''? If Oracle is defending themselves, they will pay lawyers to search thoroughly for any deal that might help them, but if Nexenta is defending from a Netapp suit, assuming Nexenta can get any disclosure how does Nexenta force a thorough disclosure when deciding the applicability of a patent is subjective and expensive? The idea of writing clever licenses to virally dismantle the American patent disaster is an exciting one, but I don''t understand how the patent clauses in these new licenses actually work. The law involved is now so complicated that it''s obviously impossible to guess one''s way through it instead of subtly impossible like it was before, so I don''t know how anyone but a lawyer can start a small company any more. which is probably why there aren''t any left, aside from small companies where the only successful endgame planned is to get bought by a big one. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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On 12/13/10 05:55 PM, Miles Nordin wrote:> + Oracle publishes the promised yet-to-be-delivered zfs-crypto > paper that''s thorough enough to write a compatible implementationIt isn''t yet the full paper but a lot of the on disk details are in my latest blog entry and all of the structs necessary for the on disk format are in the CTF data of the binaries. http://blogs.sun.com/darren/entry/zfs_encryption_what_is_on -- Darren J Moffat
> > We won''t know until after Oracle releases Solaris 11 whether or not > > they''ll live up to their promise to open the source to ZFSv31. ?Until > > Solaris 11 is released, there''s really not much point in debating it. > > And if they don''t, it will be Sad, both in terms of useful code not > being available to a wide community to review and amend, as in terms > of Oracle not really getting the point about open source development.That''s how I feel - it will just be sad if they don''t. There''s no point arguing or bickering or guessing. They either will, or they won''t, do the right thing. All we can do is hope. It would be a real shame if Oracle didn''t simply open source the code. It''s not as if there are any trade secrets left - the technology is well known. After all, Sun published the guts and they can''t put the genie back in the lamp. So the principles of ZFS can be duplicated. But it sure would be nice if they spared everyone a lot of effort and annoyance and just GPL''d ZFS. I think the goodwill generated would definitely offset any minor losses. I know that, as a person who''s been a Solaris admin for almost 20 years and not generally a big fan of Oracle, it would certainly go a long way towards starting our new, enforced relationship off on a better foot. I have to say that given Oracle''s track record I don''t expect it. I fully expect them to lock it up as tight and proprietary as possible and charge everyone as much as they can, because what''s important is The Last Penny On Earth. But I''m hoping I''m wrong and being overly pessimistic. Doug Linder ---------- Learn more about Merchant Link at www.merchantlink.com. THIS MESSAGE IS CONFIDENTIAL. This e-mail message and any attachments are proprietary and confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not print, distribute, or copy this message or any attachments. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this message and any attachments from your computer.
On Wed, 2010-12-15 at 15:05 -0500, Linder, Doug wrote:> > > We won''t know until after Oracle releases Solaris 11 whether or not > > > they''ll live up to their promise to open the source to ZFSv31. > Until > > Solaris 11 is released, there''s really not much point in > debating it. > > And if they don''t, it will be Sad, both in terms of > useful code not > being available to a wide community to review and > amend, as in terms > of Oracle not really getting the point about open > source development. > > That''s how I feel - it will just be sad if they don''t. There''s no > point arguing or bickering or guessing. They either will, or they > won''t, do the right thing. All we can do is hope. It would be a real > shame if Oracle didn''t simply open source the code. It''s not as if > there are any trade secrets left - the technology is well known. > After all, Sun published the guts and they can''t put the genie back in > the lamp. So the principles of ZFS can be duplicated. But it sure > would be nice if they spared everyone a lot of effort and annoyance > and just GPL''d ZFS. I think the goodwill generated would definitely > offset any minor losses. I know that, as a person who''s been a > Solaris admin for almost 20 years and not generally a big fan of > Oracle, it would certainly go a long way towards starting our new, > enforced relationship off on a better foot. > > I have to say that given Oracle''s track record I don''t expect it. I > fully expect them to lock it up as tight and proprietary as possible > and charge everyone as much as they can, because what''s important is > The Last Penny On Earth. But I''m hoping I''m wrong and being overly > pessimistic. > > Doug Linder > ----------I, for one, would be astonished if they (Oracle) GPL''d the relevant sections of code. It seems so out-of-character that I just can''t wrap my brain around it. <wink> That said, I''d also be unhappy if they GPL''d it. I''d much rather just have Oracle keep contributing to the codebase they have now, and keep the community we''ve got interested. Which is at least reasonably possible, if not probable. Personally, I''m happy that there are at least /some/ things that *can''t* be easily ported completely across the *BSD, Solaris, HPUX, AIX, and Linux world. I want a thriving multi-flavored UNIX ecosystem where STANDARDS are important, and each product has differentiation. Allowing everything to be sucked into Linux devolves into the Tragedy of the Commons, and we end up with LESS choice, and LESS innovation. Plus, it helps keep employed generalists like me, who know a good bit about several OSes, but only so much about any one. <grin> [ObDisclaimer: I work for Oracle, but the opinions expressed herein are solely my own, and contain no Oracle proprietary knowledge] -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-317 Phone: x67195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)
On Wed, 15 Dec 2010, Linder, Doug wrote:> But it sure would be nice if they spared everyone a lot of effort > and annoyance and just GPL''d ZFS. I think the goodwill generatedWhy do you want them to "GPL" ZFS? In what way would that save you annoyance? Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
On Wed, 15 Dec 2010, Erik Trimble wrote:> I, for one, would be astonished if they (Oracle) GPL''d the relevant > sections of code. It seems so out-of-character that I just can''t wrap my > brain around it. <wink> > > That said, I''d also be unhappy if they GPL''d it. I''d much rather just > have Oracle keep contributing to the codebase they have now, and keep > the community we''ve got interested. Which is at least reasonablyGPL is actually a rather restrictive license. Perhaps it is better for Linux if it is GPLv2, but probably not if it is GPLv3. It is really not good for anything *but* Linux. Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
On Dec 15, 2010, at 6:48 PM, Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> wrote:> On Wed, 15 Dec 2010, Linder, Doug wrote: > >> But it sure would be nice if they spared everyone a lot of effort and annoyance and just GPL''d ZFS. I think the goodwill generated > > Why do you want them to "GPL" ZFS? In what way would that save you annoyance?I actually think Doug was trying to say he wished Oracle would open the development and make the source code open-sourced, not necessarily GPL''d. -Ross
>>>>> "bf" == Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> writes:bf> Perhaps it is better for Linux if it is GPLv2, but probably bf> not if it is GPLv3. That''s my understanding: GPLv3 is the one you would need to preserve software freedom under deals like NetApp<->Oracle patent pact, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html#patent-protection but GPLv3 is not compatible with Linux because the kernel is GPLv2 but stupidly/stubbornly deleted the ``or any later version'''' language, meaning GPLv3 is not any more Linux-compatible than CDDL. however given how widely-used binary modules are to supposedly get around the license incompatibility, many might consider the GPLv3 patent protections worth more than license compatibility, if your goal is software freedom, or a predictable future for your business. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 304 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101215/af89fc91/attachment-0001.bin>
> From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss- > bounces at opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Linder, Doug > > But it > sure would be nice if they spared everyone a lot of effort and annoyance and > just GPL''d ZFS.If you just mean it should be open source, under CDDL that it''s been using, then I agree whole heartedly. If you literally mean GPL, I disagree wholeheartedly. I''m trying to find a way to say this without provoking a CDDL vs GPL flame war, but it seems near impossible. Long story short, GPL is more restrictive, and grants fewer freedoms to whoever receives a copy of the product. Neither CDDL, nor GPL, nor any other license would bind Oracle any stronger. In any case, they grant rights to the world, which are irrevokable. In any case, Oracle and only Oracle is permitted to release future developments under different terms, or not released at all. They''re the copyright holder, they can still do whatever they want, regardless of what rights they give you. The selection of CDDL vs GPL vs others is entirely a question of which rights they are willing to grant you. CDDL grants you more rights than GPL. In fact, that''s the reason why CDDL is not GPL compatible. Because GPL is not compatible with other open-source licenses if the other licenses grant too many permissions to the recipient. Specifically: GPL prohibits the recipient from static linking with a closed-source product, or using closed-source build scripts. CDDL does not make that restriction. CDDL permits the recipient to build the CDDL code into a proprietary product, and only the original CDDL code and modifications to it must be open source and available under CDDL. All the other stuff that gets linked, and the build process itself, are permitted to be closed source. This is too permissive to be compatible with GPL. Again, none of those restrictions apply to the copyright holder. Oracle can do whatever they want, and link and modify with closed-source anything they want, regardless of what rights they grant you.
> > In fact, that''s the reason why CDDL is not GPL compatible. Because > GPL is not compatible with other open-source licenses if the other > licenses grant too many permissions to the recipient. > Specifically: > > GPL prohibits the recipient from static linking with a closed-source > product, or using closed-source build scripts. CDDL does not make > that restriction. CDDL permits the recipient to build the CDDL code > into a proprietary product, and only the original CDDL code and > modifications to it must be open source and available under CDDL. > All the other stuff that gets linked, and the build process itself, > are permitted to be closed source. This is too permissive to be > compatible with GPL.These reasons don''t make CDDL incompatible with GPL. GPL is compatible with any license which is at least as permissive as itself. GPLv2 only requires that the recipient be able to receive all of the source code under terms which allow building new binaries (including based on modified source code) and distributed under similar terms. There might be some other reason that CDDL could be considered incompatible with GPL, but not the reasons you mentioned. I think that the reason that Linux does not want to pick up zfs is more a matter of control and philosophy than actual license incompatibility. Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
Miles Nordin <carton at Ivy.NET> wrote:> * when do the CDDL patent protections apply? to deals between Oracle > and Netapp? or is it only protection against Oracle patents? I > think the latter, but then, which Oracle patents? Suppose:The CDDL gives patent grants to all patents that relate to code code published by the patent owner. This is the maximum possible patent protection that is possible by a OS license.> * AIUI Oracle has distributed grub with zfs patches, and grub is > GPLv3. Is this true? If so, GPLv3 includes stuff to extend patent > deals, which was added becuase GPLv3 was written under the ominous > spectre of the Microsoft-Novell Linux indemnification deal. Does > GPLv3 grub extend any of the Netapp deal to those patented > algorithms which are used within grub? The GPLv3 is supposed to do > some of this, but I don''t know how much.The GPLv3 does not give you more protection that the CDDL does and the GPLv3 is a really problematic license. Note that while there existist numerous papers from lawyers that consistently explain which parts of the GPLv2 are violating US law and thus are void, there is noting like that for GPLv3 already, so you live in uncertainty. As an important part in the GPLv3 is written in a very ambiguous way, GPLv3 seems to carry a high risk of being sued. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
Miles Nordin <carton at Ivy.NET> wrote:> >>>>> "bf" == Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> writes: > > bf> Perhaps it is better for Linux if it is GPLv2, but probably > bf> not if it is GPLv3. > > That''s my understanding: GPLv3 is the one you would need to preserve > software freedom under deals like NetApp<->Oracle patent pact,GPLv3 does not give you anything you don''t have from CDDL also.> but GPLv3 is not compatible with Linux because the kernel is GPLv2 but > stupidly/stubbornly deleted the ``or any later version'''' language, > meaning GPLv3 is not any more Linux-compatible than CDDL.The GPLv3 is intentionally incompatible with the GPLv2 and this seems to be indeed a stupud decision......but this is a decision made by Mr. Stallman. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> wrote:> These reasons don''t make CDDL incompatible with GPL. GPL is > compatible with any license which is at least as permissive as itself. > GPLv2 only requires that the recipient be able to receive all of the > source code under terms which allow building new binaries (including > based on modified source code) and distributed under similar terms. > There might be some other reason that CDDL could be considered > incompatible with GPL, but not the reasons you mentioned.The FSF claims that running FSF software on top of OpenSolaris is permitted, so it seems that the FSF does not see any incompatibility from combining GPL software with e.g. CDDL libraries. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
> From: Garrett D''Amore [mailto:garrett at nexenta.com] > Sent: Friday, December 10, 2010 10:47 AM > > We have ZFS version 28.? Whether we ever get another open source update > of ZFS from *Oracle* is at this point doubtful.? However, I will point outthat Forgive me for swinging the conversation back to the original question for a moment. Is ZFS open source? sol11exp has zpool 31 nexenta has zpool 28 openindiana has zpool 28 solaris 10u9 has zpool 22 Since sol11exp has been out for a while now, and it''s been several months since 28 was the current release... And yet 28 is still the current open source release ... It seems that at least the latest versions of ZFS are closed source. There''s no saying what Oracle will do in the future, but I don''t advise holding your breath while you wait for something higher than zpool 28. I imagine a world where Dell and HP and IBM will sponsor openindiana, and hire developers away from oracle (or just hire developers in general) to continue the open source branch developments. Compete against netapp and oracle seriously. Certify openindiana on their hardware in earnest. But there''s one obstacle I don''t see any overcoming ... Oracle is the only company who has already gotten immunity against netapp lawsuit. So if any big companies are going to further the open source branches, they will either have to acquire immunity somehow, or calculate the cost of lawsuit. They''ll also have to watch Oracle''s patents with a hawkeye, and ensure not to tread near, because you know what Oracle will do.
Erik Trimble <erik.trimble at oracle.com> wrote:> The last update I see to the ZFS public tree is 29 Oct 2010. Which, I > *think*, is about the time that the fork for the Solaris 11 Express > snapshot was taken.Do you really see such an update? The last time I tried, the source was frozen on August 18th 2010. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
> > Why do you want them to "GPL" ZFS? In what way would that save you > annoyance? > > I actually think Doug was trying to say he wished Oracle would open the > development and make the source code open-sourced, not necessarily > GPL''d.Yes. I don''t really care which specific license it is, as long as it allows ZFS to go into Linux. How would it save me annoyance? I find it *hugely* annoying that I can''t use ZFS in Linux, and that a huge parallel effort (the horribly-named "btrfs") is required to duplicate something that already exists in a stable, powerful incarnation. And even that will be several years at least before it''s even close to "done" enough for people to trust it in production. ---------- Learn more about Merchant Link at www.merchantlink.com. THIS MESSAGE IS CONFIDENTIAL. This e-mail message and any attachments are proprietary and confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not print, distribute, or copy this message or any attachments. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this message and any attachments from your computer.
Linder, Doug wrote:>>> Why do you want them to "GPL" ZFS? In what way would that save you >>> >> annoyance? >> >> I actually think Doug was trying to say he wished Oracle would open the >> development and make the source code open-sourced, not necessarily >> GPL''d. >> > > Yes. I don''t really care which specific license it is, as long as it allows ZFS to go into Linux. ><feeding-trolls>I''m very happy it''s not in linux since "linux" is usually a low quality pile of crap cobbled together. If you''re not writing the code to zfs or btrfs then you don''t get a vote and just making noise on a public mailing list</feeing-trolls> How about doing some work instead of just complaining about things that are outside of our control..
> <feeding-trolls>I''m very happy it''s not in linux since "linux" is > usually a low quality pile of crap cobbled together. If you''re not > writing the code to zfs or btrfs then you don''t get a vote and just > making noise on a public mailing list</feeing-trolls> > > How about doing some work instead of just complaining about things that > are outside of our control..Dude, you need to drink less coffee! (avoids entering into a flame war) ---------- Learn more about Merchant Link at www.merchantlink.com. THIS MESSAGE IS CONFIDENTIAL. This e-mail message and any attachments are proprietary and confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not print, distribute, or copy this message or any attachments. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this message and any attachments from your computer.
"Linder, Doug" <Doug.Linder at merchantlink.com> wrote:> > > Why do you want them to "GPL" ZFS? In what way would that save you > > annoyance? > > > > I actually think Doug was trying to say he wished Oracle would open the > > development and make the source code open-sourced, not necessarily > > GPL''d. > > Yes. I don''t really care which specific license it is, as long as it allows ZFS to go into Linux. > > How would it save me annoyance? I find it *hugely* annoying that I can''t use ZFS in Linux, and that a huge parallel effort (the horribly-named "btrfs") is required to duplicate something that already exists in a stable, powerful incarnation. And even that will be several years at least before it''s even close to "done" enough for people to trust it in production.The reason for not being able to use ZFS under Linux is not the license used by ZFS but the missing will for integration. Several lawyers explained already why adding ZFS to the Linux would just create a "collective work" that is permitted by the GPL. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
> The reason for not being able to use ZFS under Linux is not the license used by > ZFS but the missing will for integration. > > Several lawyers explained already why adding ZFS to the Linux would just create > a "collective work" that is permitted by the GPL. >lalala.. http://zfsonlinux.org/
Joerg Schilling wrote:> The reason for not being able to use ZFS under Linux is not the license > used by ZFS but the missing will for integration. > > Several lawyers explained already why adding ZFS to the Linux would > just create a "collective work" that is permitted by the GPL.Folks, I very much did not intend to start, nor do I want to participate in or perpetuate, any religious flame wars. This list is for ZFS discussion. There are plenty of other places for License Wars and IP discussion. The only thing I''ll add is that I, as I said, I really don''t care at all about licenses. When it comes to licenses, to me (and, I suspect, the vast majority of other OSS users), "GPL" is "synonymous with "open source". Is that correct? No. Am I aware that plenty of other licenses exist? Yes. Is the issue important? Sure. Do I have time or interest to worry about niggly little details? No. All I want is to be able to use the best technology in the ways that are most useful to me without artificial restrictions. Anything that advances that, I''m for. This is one of those geek things where the topic you''re personally very geeky about seems *hugely* important and you can''t understand why others don''t see that. Maybe it bugs you when people use "GPL" to mean "open source", but the fact is that lots and lots of people do. It bugs me when Stallman tries to get everyone to use the ridiculous "GNU/Linux", as if anyone would ever say that. It bugs me when people say "I *could* care less." But I live with these things. People talk the way they talk. If you''re into IP issues and OSS licensing, that''s great. But don''t be surprised if other people aren''t as fascinated with the dirty details of IP law as you are. Most people find the law unutterably boring. So, feel free to discuss this as much as you want, but leave me out of it. I regret and apologize for my callous disregard in casually tossing around a clearly incendiary term like "GPL". Everyone have a great day! :) ---------- Learn more about Merchant Link at www.merchantlink.com. THIS MESSAGE IS CONFIDENTIAL. This e-mail message and any attachments are proprietary and confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not print, distribute, or copy this message or any attachments. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this message and any attachments from your computer.
> lalala.. > > http://zfsonlinux.org/Very nice. So why isn''t it in Fedora (for example)? I''ll believe it when I see it in a big Linux distribution, supported like any other FS, and I can use it in production. Until then, it doesn''t exist. ---------- Learn more about Merchant Link at www.merchantlink.com. THIS MESSAGE IS CONFIDENTIAL. This e-mail message and any attachments are proprietary and confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not print, distribute, or copy this message or any attachments. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this message and any attachments from your computer.
"C. Bergstr?m" <codestr0m at osunix.org> wrote:> lalala..-> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletubbies J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 8:11 AM, Linder, Doug <Doug.Linder at merchantlink.com>wrote:> Joerg Schilling wrote: > > > The reason for not being able to use ZFS under Linux is not the license > > used by ZFS but the missing will for integration. > > > > Several lawyers explained already why adding ZFS to the Linux would > > just create a "collective work" that is permitted by the GPL. > > Folks, I very much did not intend to start, nor do I want to participate in > or perpetuate, any religious flame wars. This list is for ZFS discussion. > There are plenty of other places for License Wars and IP discussion. > > The only thing I''ll add is that I, as I said, I really don''t care at all > about licenses. When it comes to licenses, to me (and, I suspect, the vast > majority of other OSS users), "GPL" is "synonymous with "open source". Is > that correct? No. Am I aware that plenty of other licenses exist? Yes. > Is the issue important? Sure. Do I have time or interest to worry about > niggly little details? No. All I want is to be able to use the best > technology in the ways that are most useful to me without artificial > restrictions. Anything that advances that, I''m for. > > This is one of those geek things where the topic you''re personally very > geeky about seems *hugely* important and you can''t understand why others > don''t see that. Maybe it bugs you when people use "GPL" to mean "open > source", but the fact is that lots and lots of people do. It bugs me when > Stallman tries to get everyone to use the ridiculous "GNU/Linux", as if > anyone would ever say that. It bugs me when people say "I *could* care > less." But I live with these things. People talk the way they talk. If > you''re into IP issues and OSS licensing, that''s great. But don''t be > surprised if other people aren''t as fascinated with the dirty details of IP > law as you are. Most people find the law unutterably boring. > > So, feel free to discuss this as much as you want, but leave me out of it. > I regret and apologize for my callous disregard in casually tossing around > a clearly incendiary term like "GPL". > > Everyone have a great day! :) >The problem is, what you''re saying amounts to: I want Oracle to port ZFS to linux because I don''t want to pay for it. I don''t want to pay Oracle for it, and I want to be able to use it any way I see fit. What is in it for Oracle? "Goodwill" doesn''t pay the bills. Claiming you''d start paying for Solaris if they gave you ZFS for free in Linux is absolutely ridiculous. If the best response you can come up with is "goodwill", I suggest wishing in one hand and shitting in the other because there''s no way Oracle is going to give away such a valuable piece of code for no monetary compensation. *AT BEST* I could see them releasing a binary for OEL only that they won''t be sharing with anyone else. --Tim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101216/e5caf3f7/attachment-0001.html>
Tim Cook wrote:>"Claiming you''d start paying for Solaris if they gave you ZFS for free in Linux is absolutely ridiculous."*Start* paying? You clearly have NO idea what it costs to run Solaris in a production environment with support. For what we pay it seems like they should send us a Solaris developer to sit at our company full-time and bring us coffee when he isn''t making custom changes for us. And he could have a secretary.> "The problem is, what you''re saying amounts to: I want Oracle to port ZFS to linux because I don''t want to pay for it. I don''t want to pay Oracle for it, and I want to be able to use it any way I see fit."You''re just putting words in my mouth. I never said "I don''t want to pay for it." If Oracle released "ZFS for Linux" as a product and charged money for it, I''d be very willing to consider it - if it were reasonably priced. Which it wouldn''t be, it would likely cost $8,735 - per processor! ---------- Learn more about Merchant Link at www.merchantlink.com. THIS MESSAGE IS CONFIDENTIAL. This e-mail message and any attachments are proprietary and confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not print, distribute, or copy this message or any attachments. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this message and any attachments from your computer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101216/83802e2a/attachment.html>
Hi, For any one interested in ZFS on linux, We have ported ZFS to linux, and will be providing support for it at reasonable cost. Check it out at zfs.kqinfotech.com. So let me know if any one is interested in it. Regards, Anurag. On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 8:54 PM, Linder, Doug <Doug.Linder at merchantlink.com>wrote:> Tim Cook wrote: > > > > >"Claiming you''d start paying for Solaris if they gave you ZFS for free in > Linux is absolutely ridiculous." > > > > **Start** paying? You clearly have NO idea what it costs to run Solaris > in a production environment with support. For what we pay it seems like > they should send us a Solaris developer to sit at our company full-time and > bring us coffee when he isn''t making custom changes for us. And he could > have a secretary. > > > > > "The problem is, what you''re saying amounts to: I want Oracle to port ZFS > to linux because I don''t want to pay for it. I don''t want to pay Oracle for > it, and I want to be able to use it any way I see fit." > > > > You''re just putting words in my mouth. I never said "I don''t want to pay > for it." If Oracle released "ZFS for Linux" as a product and charged money > for it, I''d be very willing to consider it - if it were reasonably priced. > Which it wouldn''t be, it would likely cost $8,735 ? per processor! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ---------- > Learn more about Merchant Link at www.merchantlink.com. > > THIS MESSAGE IS CONFIDENTIAL. This e-mail message and any attachments are proprietary and confidential information intended only for the use of the recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient, you may not print, distribute, or copy this message or any attachments. If you have received this communication in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and delete this message and any attachments from your computer. > > > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss > >-- Anurag Agarwal CEO, Founder KQ Infotech, Pune www.kqinfotech.com 9881254401 Coordinator Akshar Bharati www.aksharbharati.org Spreading joy through reading -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101216/a511b6a7/attachment.html>
>>>>> "js" == Joerg Schilling <Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de>delivered the following alternate reality of idealogical partisan hackery: js> GPLv3 does not give you anything you don''t have from CDDL js> also. I think this is wrong. The patent indemnification is totally different: AIUI the CDDL makes the implicit patent license explicit and that''s it, but GPLv3 does that and goes further by driving in a wedge against patent pacts, somehow. GPLv3 might help with NetApp <-> Oracle pact while CDDL does not. This is a big difference illustrated through a familiar and very relevant example---not sure how to do better than that, Joerg! js> The GPLv3 is intentionally incompatible with the GPLv2 This is definitely wrong, if you dig into the detail more. Most GPLv2 programs include a clause ``or any later version'''', so adding one GPLv3 file to them just makes the whole project GPLv3, and there''s no real problem. Obviously this clause only makes sense if you trust the FSF, which I do so I include it, but Linus apparently didn''t trust them so he struck the clause long ago. so GPLv3 and Apache are compatible while GPLv2 and GPLv3 are not, that is true and is designed. However GPLv2 was also designed to be upgradeable, which was absolutely the FSF''s intent, to achieve compatibility, and they have done so with all their old projects like gcc and gnu libc. The usual way to accomplish license upgradeability is to delegate your copyright to the organization you trust to know the difference between ``upgrade'''' and ``screw you over.'''' That''s the method Sun forced upon people who had to sign contributor agreements, and is also the method SFLC advises most new free software projects to adopt: don''t let individual developers keep licenses, because they''ll become obstinate ossified illogical partisan farts like Joerg, or will not answer email, so you can never ever change the license. FSF gives you this extra ``or any later version'''' option to use, which is handy if you trust them to make your software more free in the future yet also want to keep your copyright so YOU can make it less free in the future, if you decide you want to. seems only fair to me, so long as you really did write all of it. GPLv3 is about as incompatible with GPLv2 as ``not giving any source at all'''' is incompatible with CDDL. ie, if you delegated your copyright to Sun and contributed under CDDL, Sun has now ``upgraded'''' your license to no-source-at-all, which is obviously CDDL-incompatible and by-design. The CDDL of course could never include an ``or any later version'''' clause because it would be completely stupid: there''s no reason to trust Sun/Oracle. IMHO this is a huge advantage of GPL---it''s very easy to future-proof your work, provided you trust the FSF, which I''m sure Joerg does not, but many people do which is lucky for us who do. Joerg doesn''t have anyone left to trust: if you donated your copyright to Sun to try to future-proof it against unexpected needed license changes, you''re now screwed out of your original intent because they''ve altered the terms of the deal you thought you were getting. And if your clan of developers won''t collectively trust anyone, you also lose because if your understanding of patents evolves in the future, your large old projects who refused-to-trust (like Linux!) are stuck with patent robustness much worse than it needs to be. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 304 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101216/750da2bc/attachment.bin>
>>>>> "ld" == Linder, Doug <Doug.Linder at merchantlink.com> writes:ld> Very nice. So why isn''t it in Fedora (for example)? I think it''s slow and unstable? To me it''s not clear yet whether it will be the first thing in the Linux world that''s stable and has zfs-like capability. If ZFS were GPL it probably would have been, though. and I think I needed many other things from Solaris like zones, COMSTAR, IB, so I''ll be trying to get those on Linux too before I can finally ditch these Solaris machines. so, at the time all those things are working, what will the best Linux filesystem be? maybe ZFS. ld> I''ll believe it when I see it in a big Linux distribution, ld> supported like any other FS, and I can use it in production. ld> Until then, it doesn''t exist. yes. but it is not the license exactly that''s keeping it out. I think the license is just annoying some of the Linux developers enough that they prefer to spend their effort elsewhere. ex., OpenBSD is also refusing to accept ZFS because of license, but in their case it is probably ``because we are forced to give source and don''t want to''''. I agree some of the haggling is stupid, but with all these jackmoves everywhere, saying ``I don''t understand all this crap and want to code, so give me a license with a track record I can see, not the Dynacorp Public Goofylicense or something like that,'''' is not a totally stupid position. I do wish people would do more than just code and try harder to learn the actual license details, though. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 304 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101216/82deada6/attachment.bin>
>>>>> "ld" == Linder, Doug <Doug.Linder at merchantlink.com> writes:ld> This list is for ZFS discussion. There are plenty of other ld> places for License Wars and IP discussion. Did you miss the part where ZFS was forked by a license change? Did you miss Solaris Express 11 coming out with no source? Do you not understand everyone is looking for a place to get maintenance on their zpools without getting screwed over? and that whatever few people not too disgusted to walk away, like pjd and NetBSD and kqinfotech and so on, must worry about where to commit their patches and under what license they may use, or at least ``continue delegating to Sun, or stop?'''' How can yuo call this OT at this point? ld> I really don''t care at all about licenses. I think you should start caring, because they affect you. Obviously your care is up to you, but you''re also the one who offered to discuss it! ld> Folks, I very much did not intend to start, nor do I want to ld> participate in or perpetuate, any religious flame wars. yeah, but you''re creating more drama by trying to cut off drama than you would by just letting people discuss. Sometimes these threads of ``excuse me but you are a flamer / no U / folks folks attention please everyone calm down / woah woah woah didn''t mean to get your panties in a bunch'''' is the real content-free post, not the actual disagreement which has some content in it. ld> Is the issue important? Sure. Do I have time or interest to ld> worry about niggly little details? No. Then you''re lazy. Don''t demand that others be lazy, too, because you''re not only too lazy to care, but you''re too lazy to skip their messages that you don''t care about! ld> personally very geeky about seems *hugely* important and you ld> can''t understand why others don''t see that. Maybe it bugs you ld> when people use "GPL" to mean "open source", but the fact is ld> that lots and lots of people do. It bugs me when Stallman ld> tries to get everyone to use the ridiculous "GNU/Linux", as if ld> anyone would ever say that. It bugs me when people say "I ld> *could* care less." But I live with these things. If you live with them, why not live with them quietly? Listing what you don''t care about is a lot less useful than talking about things that only some people care about. I think virtually no one cares to keep track of what unique things you don''t care about, yet confusingly you seem to present your post as a way to avoid useless discussion. You already know others DO care about it, so....? ld> I regret and apologize for my callous disregard in casually ld> tossing around a clearly incendiary term like "GPL". no problem! But if you really regret it then you won''t mind when you do it again and get corrected again. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 304 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101216/6c9179ea/attachment.bin>
On Thu, 2010-12-16 at 14:31 +0100, Joerg Schilling wrote:> Erik Trimble <erik.trimble at oracle.com> wrote: > > > The last update I see to the ZFS public tree is 29 Oct 2010. Which, I > > *think*, is about the time that the fork for the Solaris 11 Express > > snapshot was taken. > > Do you really see such an update? > > The last time I tried, the source was frozen on August 18th 2010. > > J?rg >Nope, Casper and Robert were correct. I was looking at the timestamps on the files, not the internal date on the files. Last update looks to be from b147, NOT b151. :-( The Oct timeframe is correct for when the b151 snapshot (the basis for Solaris 11 Express) was taken, but the source doesn''t appear to have been pushed publicly since August (b147). -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-317 Phone: x67195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)
Miles Nordin <carton at Ivy.NET> wrote:> >>>>> "js" == Joerg Schilling <Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de> > delivered the following alternate reality of idealogical > partisan hackery: > > js> GPLv3 does not give you anything you don''t have from CDDL > js> also. > > I think this is wrong. The patent indemnification is totally > different: AIUI the CDDL makes the implicit patent license explicit > and that''s it, but GPLv3 does that and goes further by driving in a > wedge against patent pacts, somehow.Both licenses do the same using different words. They both require contributors to give a royalty-free patent usage permission for all patents owned or controlled by the contributor in case they are used by the contributed code. More is not possible. If you believe there is a noticable difference, please explain.....> GPLv3 might help with NetApp <-> Oracle pact while CDDL does not. > This is a big difference illustrated through a familiar and very > relevant example---not sure how to do better than that, Joerg!GPLv3 does not help at all with NetApp as the CDDL already includes a patent grant with the maximum possible coverage. The interesting thing however is that the FSF (before the GPLv3 exists) claimed that the CDDL is a bad license _because_ of it''s patent defense claims. Now the FSF does the same as the CDDL ;-)> js> The GPLv3 is intentionally incompatible with the GPLv2 > > This is definitely wrong, if you dig into the detail more. Most GPLv2 > programs include a clause ``or any later version'''', so adding one > GPLv3 file to them just makes the whole project GPLv3, and there''s no > real problem.You are obviously wrong here: The GPLv3 is definitevely incompatible with the GPLv2 and most software does _not_ include the "or any later clause" by intention.> Obviously this clause only makes sense if you trust the FSF, which I > do so I include it, but Linus apparently didn''t trust them so he > struck the clause long ago.Given the fact that the FSF is the biggest license/Copyright violater on code taken from the cdrtools project, it should be obvious that you cannot trust the FSF.> so GPLv3 and Apache are compatible while GPLv2 and GPLv3 are not, that > is true and is designed. However GPLv2 was also designed to be > upgradeable, which was absolutely the FSF''s intent, to achieve > compatibility, and they have done so with all their old projects like > gcc and gnu libc.The Apache-2.0 license grants sub-licensing, so it is one of the few licenses where the end-user or redistributor may not always get all permissions from the original author. If you however like to combine Apache-2.0 code with GPL code and do this acording to the rules written in the GPL, this is still not possible as the Apache-2.0 license does not give you the permission to change the license for code from other contributors. As a result, the only way to combine Apache-2.0 code with GPL code still is to declare the resultant work a "collective work". So there is no difference from combining CDDL code with GPL code.> The usual way to accomplish license upgradeability is to delegate your > copyright to the organization you trust to know the difference between > ``upgrade'''' and ``screw you over.'''' That''s the method Sun forced upon > people who had to sign contributor agreements, and is also the method > SFLC advises most new free software projects to adopt: don''t let > individual developers keep licenses, because they''ll become obstinate > ossified illogical partisan farts like Joerg, or will not answer > email, so you can never ever change the license.OK, you just verified that you are just a troll. We need to stop the discussion here. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On 12/16/10 10:24 AM -0500 Linder, Doug wrote:> Tim Cook wrote: > >> "Claiming you''d start paying for Solaris if they gave you ZFS for free >> in Linux is absolutely ridiculous." > > *Start* paying? You clearly have NO idea what it costs to run Solaris in > a production environment with support.In my experience, it''s less than RedHat. Also TCO is less since Solaris offers more to begin with.
On 12/16/10 9:11 AM -0500 Linder, Doug wrote:> The only thing I''ll add is that I, as I said, I really don''t care at all > about licenses.Then you have no room to complain or even suggest a specific license!> When it comes to licenses, to me (and, I suspect, the > vast majority of other OSS users), "GPL" is "synonymous with "open > source". Is that correct? No. Am I aware that plenty of other licenses > exist? Yes. Is the issue important? Sure.Agreed.> Do I have time or interest > to worry about niggly little details? No.Well the problem with licenses is that they are decidedly NOT niggly little details. You should consider re-evaluating what you have time or interest for, if you care about the things you say (such as maximum and flexible use of the products you are using).> All I want is to be able to > use the best technology in the ways that are most useful to me without > artificial restrictions. Anything that advances that, I''m for.CDDL is close to that, much closer than GPL. -frank
On 12/16/10 11:32 AM +0100 Joerg Schilling wrote:> Note that while there existist > numerous papers from lawyers that consistently explain which parts of > the GPLv2 are violating US law and thus are void,Can you elaborate?
Frank Cusack <frank+lists/zfs at linetwo.net> wrote:> On 12/16/10 11:32 AM +0100 Joerg Schilling wrote: > > Note that while there existist > > numerous papers from lawyers that consistently explain which parts of > > the GPLv2 are violating US law and thus are void, > > Can you elaborate?See: http://www.osscc.net/en/gpl.html for a list..... e.g. the papers from Lawrence Rosen, Tom Gordon and Lothar Determan. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
> From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss- > bounces at opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Frank Cusack > > >> "Claiming you''d start paying for Solaris if they gave you ZFS for free > >> in Linux is absolutely ridiculous." > > > > *Start* paying? You clearly have NO idea what it costs to run Solarisin> > a production environment with support. > > In my experience, it''s less than RedHat. Also TCO is less since Solaris > offers more to begin with.Guys... The discussion of whether or not ZFS is open source moving forward has long since been concluded. Of course, please feel free to discuss anything you like, but maybe you want to start a new thread to argue about whether solaris is better than redhat, or GPL is legally significant and blah blah blah, and so forth?
>>>>> "js" == Joerg Schilling <Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de> writes:>> GPLv3 might help with NetApp <-> Oracle pact while CDDL does >> not. js> GPLv3 does not help at all with NetApp as the CDDL already js> includes a patent grant with the maximum possible js> coverage. AIUI CDDL makes a user safe from Sun''s patents only. If NetApp contributed code under CDDL, then it would make users safe from NetApp patents applying to code netapp contributed, but NetApp didn''t contribute any code so it does nothing. no surprises here: Sun tries to prevent competitors from making poison contributions, which is something we should all do but is ``making the implicit grant explicit''''. GPLv3 was a response to the patent pact made between Novell and Microsoft, which if it had worked would have made Linux unfree and given control of it to Microsoft and Novell, because one would need to buy a license from Novell to use Linux, and Microsoft could have participated in nsetting terms for that license whoucl could be quite elaborate like when RSA forced people to use the RSAREF library implementation of RSA to benefit from the limited patent grant, so these patent licenses have been used in the past not only to charge people who have source but also to take away software freedom from people who have source---their elaborateness can become really nefarious. The GPLv3 attempted-protection mechanism is: if Novell negotiates any patent indemnity, it must apply to all users not just Novell''s users. This is exactly what we should want to stay free in the shadow of the NetApp <-> Oracle deal, but I don''t understand the legal mechanism that accomplishes it. However I don''t see anything remotely like this in CDDL and am pretty sure although not 100% sure that I don''t see it because it isn''t there. Unfortunately I do not understand it further, and I''m trying to limit the number of times I repeat myself, so welcome back to my killfile and please feel free to take the last word, but I''ll only point out that I feel my understanding is more thorough than yours, Joerg, yet you are more certain your understanding is complete than I am of mine being complete, which is a big warning-sign to anyone who wants to take your blanket assertions as the end of the matter. js> The interesting thing however is that the FSF js> (before the GPLv3 exists) claimed that the CDDL is a bad js> license _because_ of it''s patent defense claims. Now the FSF js> does the same as the CDDL ;-) If we are debating the merits of the backing organizations rather than the licenses themselves, then I think the more interesting thing is that Sun enticed a bunch of developers to trust their stewardship of the project by sassigning copyright to Sun, then got bought by Oracle and became incapable of upholding their moral commitment and changed the license to ``no source'''', plucs ``no commercial use of binaries, no publishing benchmarks,'''' and a bunch of other completely crazy unfree boilerplate software oppression. Your point, if it even survives an unmudddled understanding of the true patent clauses, vanishes next to that reversal. but merits of backing organization is relevant for deciding about assigning your copytright to another or about including/striking the ``or any later version'''' GPL clause. The interaction between licenses and patents can be discussed apart from reputation, and probably should be otherwise I would say ``nobody use CDDL because it is backed by Oracle,'''' but I don''t say that. js> You are obviously wrong here: The GPLv3 is definitevely js> incompatible with the GPLv2 and most software does _not_ js> include the "or any later clause" by intention. And you are writing in bad faith, uninformed, and in sentences that aren''t internally consistent: GPLv2 with the clause is compatible with GPLv3 by upgrade, so it''s not ``definitively'''' incompatible. The official FSF-published version of GPLv2 does include the clause, so it would be ``by design'''' compatible even if almost everyone struck the clause as you wrongly claim. And while it''s overwhelmingly important that Linux kernel does strike the clause, still it is flatly untrue that ``most'''' software does not include the clause: I gave examples that do include the clause (gcc and gnu libc and grub and all other FSF projects) while you have no examples at all, but there is no need to debate that since anyone can STFW instead of relying on a consistently unreliable party such as yourself. js> OK, you just verified that you are just a troll. We need to js> stop the discussion here. Did you miss the part where I said SFLC (authors of GPLv3) and Sun both advise that projects obtain copyright assignment from all developers? that this is normal, and probably a good idea? If so, you probably also missed the examples of good and bad consequences of assignment in the past? and the middle-ground offered by the ``or any later version'''' clause? I am not really trolling so much as checking whether you are actually reading what I write, or are you an overt partisan wanting a platform with no concern for actual discussion. also you can stop discussing whenever YOU want to, but it''s totally without the bounds of etiquette to command others to stop discussing. istr similar rudeness from you in the past which is part of why I''m not particularly polite to you either, but this is the basic ground rule I follow: it''s about content, not your feelings. js> the only way to combine Apache-2.0 code with GPL code still is js> to declare the resultant work a "collective work". So there is js> no difference from combining CDDL code with GPL code. I have some trouble parsing this, although it doesn''t sound completely implausible. It does sound like legal advice from a non-lawyer, though. my reference for Apacle-2.0<->GPLv3 compatibility and CDDL<->GPLvXXX incompatibility is the FSF''s statements about their license''s compatibility with various others, which are based on the advice of the SFLC lawyers that wrote the GNU licenses. If you''ve got something similarly credible to back your views, like maybe a claim by lawyers who wrote the CDDL that ``our license is compatble with GPLv<XXX>'''', please do speak up about that. ow, stfw. :( js> Given the fact that the FSF is the biggest license/Copyright js> violater on code taken from the cdrtools project, it should be js> obvious that you cannot trust the FSF. and yet, it is not obvious. It''s obvious that you do not trust them and obvious that many others do trust them, so I have to ask why you say ``it should be obvious''''? If I shared your delusions but retained my rationality, I woudl write, ``I do not understand why after so much experience it''s still not obvious to everyone that you cannot [u.s.w.]''''. My hypothetical statement would contain more information because I represent reality and then argue toward my view based on it, so while it does include part of my undeluded opponent''s argument which might benefit him, that''s okay because it''s more grounded and thus stronger with anyone who has the vaguest clue what''s going on around him. Yours has the advantage it may be more persuasive to someone utterly uninformed of reality. to each his own strategy, I guess. LMK how that works out for you. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 304 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101219/4f710b7c/attachment-0001.bin>
Tim Cook <tim <at> cook.ms> writes:> You are not a court of law, and that statement has not been tested. ?It isyour opinion and nothing more. ?I''d appreciate if every time you repeated that statement, you''d preface it with "in my opinion" so you don''t have people running around believing what they''re doing is safe. ?I''d hope they''d be smart enough to consult with a lawyer, but it''s probably better to just not spread unsubstantiated rumor in the first place. ?> > --TimHi guys, I am one of the ZFS porting folks at FreeBSD. You might want to look at this site: http://www.sun.com/lawsuit/zfs/ There are three main threatening Netapp patents mentioned: 5,819,292 - "copy on write" 7,174,352 - "filesystem snapshot" 6,857,001 - "writable snapshots" You can examine the documents at: http://www.sun.com/lawsuit/zfs/documents.jsp 5,819,292: This one as a final action by the U.S. Patent Office from 16.06.2009. In this action almost all claims subject to reexamination were rejected by the Office (due to anticipation), only claims 1, 21 and 22 were confirmed as patentable. These claims are not significant for copy-on-write. So you can consider the copy-on-write patent by Netapp rejected. With this document in your hands they cannot expect winning a lawsuit against you on copy-on-write anymore as there is not much from the patent left over. 7,174,352: This patent has a non-final action rejecting all the claims due to anticipation. There may exist a final action that confirms this, but its not among the documents. If there is a final action, you can use any filesystem that does snapshots without risking a lawsuit from Netapp. The non-final action document a very strong asset in your hands, anyway :-) 6,857,001: No documents for this patent at the site. So you can use copy-on-write - as to the documents all relevant parts of the patent are rejected. Snapshots - the non-final action document is a good asset, but I don''t know if there is a final action document. This patent can be considered as "almost" rejected. Clones - no idea But remember, this goes for ANY filesystems, this isn''t only about ZFS. So every filesystem doing snapshots or clones (btrfs?) should actually have a permission from Netapp as they involve their patents ;-)
Martin Matuska <mm at FreeBSD.org> wrote:> Tim Cook <tim <at> cook.ms> writes: > > > You are not a court of law, and that statement has not been tested. ?It is > your opinion and nothing more. ?I''d appreciate if every time you repeated that > statement, you''d preface it with "in my opinion" so you don''t have people > running around believing what they''re doing is safe. ?I''d hope they''d be smart > enough to consult with a lawyer, but it''s probably better to just not spread > unsubstantiated rumor in the first place. ? > > > > --Tim > > Hi guys, I am one of the ZFS porting folks at FreeBSD. > > You might want to look at this site: http://www.sun.com/lawsuit/zfs/ > > There are three main threatening Netapp patents mentioned: > 5,819,292 - "copy on write" > 7,174,352 - "filesystem snapshot" > 6,857,001 - "writable snapshots" > > You can examine the documents at: http://www.sun.com/lawsuit/zfs/documents.jspAnd people should note that Netapp filed their patents starting from 1993. This is 5 years after I started to develop WOFS, which is copy on write. This still is 2 years after a working WOFS implementation has been shown by me at the Techische Universit?t Berlin and 2 years after I published my Dimplma thesis for WOFS. The most important part of a COW filesystem is to invent a method to reliably retrieve the most recent super block. The related invention in WOFS is from 1989. As WOFS was designed for WORM media, all super blocks stay available for ever and as a result, each "stable sync state" in WOFS could be called a "filesystem snapshot" that is created without costs. Being able to mount a snapshot different from the most recent one would no be more than 10 additional lines of code and is a trivial non-patentable extra effort. As every "stable sync state" in WOFS is is an "equal snapshot", there is no special state in the most recent sync state that prevents other sync states from being written too. I cannot see any invention from Netapp. They just reimplement prior art. In any case, this is 20 year old technology. Aren''t patents something to protect new ideas? J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
> From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss- > bounces at opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Martin Matuska > > Hi guys, I am one of the ZFS porting folks at FreeBSD.That''s all really cool, and IMHO, more promising than anything I knew before. But I''ll really believe it if (a) some non-oracle organization wins a similar case, or (b) a major player such as Apple picks up ZFS and doesn''t get threatened with lawsuit. This would include the (basically nonexistent) possibility that folks like Dell, IBM, and HP start seriously contributing to the open-source ZFS codebase.
> From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss- > bounces at opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Joerg Schilling > > And people should note that Netapp filed their patents starting from 1993. > This > is 5 years after I started to develop WOFS, which is copy on write. Thisstill> > In any case, this is 20 year old technology. Aren''t patents something to > protect new ideas?Boy, those guys must be really dumb to waste their time filing billion dollar lawsuits, protecting 20-year old technology, when it''s so obvious that you and other people clearly invented it before them, and all the money they waste on lawyers can never achieve anything. They should all fire themselves. And anybody who defends against it can safely hire a law student for $20/hr to represent them, and just pull out your documents as defense, because that''s so easy. Plus, as you said, the technology is so old, it should be worthless by now. Why are we all wasting our time in this list talking about irrelevant old technology, anyway?
On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 8:25 AM, Edward Ned Harvey < opensolarisisdeadlongliveopensolaris at nedharvey.com> wrote:> > From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss- > > bounces at opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Joerg Schilling > > > > And people should note that Netapp filed their patents starting from > 1993. > > This > > is 5 years after I started to develop WOFS, which is copy on write. This > still > > > > In any case, this is 20 year old technology. Aren''t patents something to > > protect new ideas? > > Boy, those guys must be really dumb to waste their time filing billion > dollar lawsuits, protecting 20-year old technology, when it''s so obvious > that you and other people clearly invented it before them, and all the > money > they waste on lawyers can never achieve anything. They should all fire > themselves. And anybody who defends against it can safely hire a law > student for $20/hr to represent them, and just pull out your documents as > defense, because that''s so easy. > > Plus, as you said, the technology is so old, it should be worthless by now. > Why are we all wasting our time in this list talking about irrelevant old > technology, anyway? >Indeed. Isn''t the Oracle database itself at least 20 years old? And Windows? And Solaris itself? All the employees of those companies should probably just start donating their time for free instead of collecting a paycheck since it''s quite obvious they should no longer be able to charge for their product. What I find most entertaining is all the armchair lawyers on this mailing list that think they''ve got prior art when THEY''VE NEVER EVEN SEEN THE CODE IN QUESTION! --Tim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101225/ad679ab6/attachment.html>
On 12/25/2010 6:25 AM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:>> From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss- >> bounces at opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Joerg Schilling >> >> And people should note that Netapp filed their patents starting from 1993. >> This >> is 5 years after I started to develop WOFS, which is copy on write. This > still >> In any case, this is 20 year old technology. Aren''t patents something to >> protect new ideas? > Boy, those guys must be really dumb to waste their time filing billion > dollar lawsuits, protecting 20-year old technology, when it''s so obvious > that you and other people clearly invented it before them, and all the money > they waste on lawyers can never achieve anything. They should all fire > themselves. And anybody who defends against it can safely hire a law > student for $20/hr to represent them, and just pull out your documents as > defense, because that''s so easy. > > Plus, as you said, the technology is so old, it should be worthless by now. > Why are we all wasting our time in this list talking about irrelevant old > technology, anyway? >While that''s a bit sarcastic there Ned, it *should* be the literal truth. But, as the SCO/Linux suit showed, having no realistic basis for a lawsuit doesn''t prevent one from being dragged through the (U.S.) courts for the better part of a decade. <sigh> Why can''t we have a loser-pays civil system like every other civilized country? -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)
On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 1:10 PM, Erik Trimble <erik.trimble at oracle.com>wrote:> On 12/25/2010 6:25 AM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote: > >> From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org [mailto:zfs-discuss- >>> bounces at opensolaris.org] On Behalf Of Joerg Schilling >>> >>> And people should note that Netapp filed their patents starting from >>> 1993. >>> This >>> is 5 years after I started to develop WOFS, which is copy on write. This >>> >> still >> >>> In any case, this is 20 year old technology. Aren''t patents something to >>> protect new ideas? >>> >> Boy, those guys must be really dumb to waste their time filing billion >> dollar lawsuits, protecting 20-year old technology, when it''s so obvious >> that you and other people clearly invented it before them, and all the >> money >> they waste on lawyers can never achieve anything. They should all fire >> themselves. And anybody who defends against it can safely hire a law >> student for $20/hr to represent them, and just pull out your documents as >> defense, because that''s so easy. >> >> Plus, as you said, the technology is so old, it should be worthless by >> now. >> Why are we all wasting our time in this list talking about irrelevant old >> technology, anyway? >> >> > While that''s a bit sarcastic there Ned, it *should* be the literal truth. > But, as the SCO/Linux suit showed, having no realistic basis for a lawsuit > doesn''t prevent one from being dragged through the (U.S.) courts for the > better part of a decade. > > <sigh> > > Why can''t we have a loser-pays civil system like every other civilized > country? > > > -- > Erik Trimble > Java System Support > Mailstop: usca22-123 > Phone: x17195 > Santa Clara, CA > Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800) > >If you''ve got enough money, we do. You just have to make it to the end of the trial, and have a judge who feels similar. They often award monetary settlements for the cost of legal defense to the victor. --Tim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101225/cf9b6b31/attachment.html>
On 12/25/2010 10:59 AM, Tim Cook wrote:> > > On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 8:25 AM, Edward Ned Harvey > <opensolarisisdeadlongliveopensolaris at nedharvey.com > <mailto:opensolarisisdeadlongliveopensolaris at nedharvey.com>> wrote: > > > From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org > <mailto:zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org> [mailto:zfs-discuss- > <mailto:zfs-discuss-> > > bounces at opensolaris.org <mailto:bounces at opensolaris.org>] On > Behalf Of Joerg Schilling > > > > And people should note that Netapp filed their patents starting > from 1993. > > This > > is 5 years after I started to develop WOFS, which is copy on > write. This > still > > > > In any case, this is 20 year old technology. Aren''t patents > something to > > protect new ideas? > > Boy, those guys must be really dumb to waste their time filing billion > dollar lawsuits, protecting 20-year old technology, when it''s so > obvious > that you and other people clearly invented it before them, and all > the money > they waste on lawyers can never achieve anything. They should all > fire > themselves. And anybody who defends against it can safely hire a law > student for $20/hr to represent them, and just pull out your > documents as > defense, because that''s so easy. > > Plus, as you said, the technology is so old, it should be > worthless by now. > Why are we all wasting our time in this list talking about > irrelevant old > technology, anyway? > > > > > Indeed. Isn''t the Oracle database itself at least 20 years old? And > Windows? And Solaris itself? All the employees of those companies > should probably just start donating their time for free instead of > collecting a paycheck since it''s quite obvious they should no longer > be able to charge for their product. > > What I find most entertaining is all the armchair lawyers on this > mailing list that think they''ve got prior art when THEY''VE NEVER EVEN > SEEN THE CODE IN QUESTION! > > > --TimWell... I''ve read Joerg''s paper, and I''ve read several of the patents in question, and nowhere around is there any real code. A bit of pseudo-code and some math, but no full, working code. And, granted that I''m not a IP lawyer, but it does look like Joerg''s work is prior art (and, given that the standard is supposed to be what someone in the industry would consider obvious, based on their knowledge, and I think I qualify). Which all points to the real problem of software patents - they''re really patents on IDEAS, not on a specific implementation. Who the moron was that really though that was OK (yes, I know who specifically, but in general...) should be shot. Copyright is fine or protecting software work, but patents? Joerg - your paper used to be available here (which is where I read it awhile ago), but not anymore: http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/wofs.ps.gz Is there a better location? (and, a full English translation? I read it in German, but my German is maybe at 7th-grade level, so I might have missed some subtleties...) [As obvious as it is, it should be pointed out, I''m making these statements as a very personal opinion, and I''m certain Oracle wouldn''t have the same one. I in no way represent Oracle.] -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101225/3b6a615a/attachment-0001.html>
On 12/25/2010 11:19 AM, Tim Cook wrote:> > > On Sat, Dec 25, 2010 at 1:10 PM, Erik Trimble <erik.trimble at oracle.com > <mailto:erik.trimble at oracle.com>> wrote: > > On 12/25/2010 6:25 AM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote: > > From: zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org > <mailto:zfs-discuss-bounces at opensolaris.org> > [mailto:zfs-discuss- <mailto:zfs-discuss-> > bounces at opensolaris.org <mailto:bounces at opensolaris.org>] > On Behalf Of Joerg Schilling > > And people should note that Netapp filed their patents > starting from 1993. > This > is 5 years after I started to develop WOFS, which is copy > on write. This > > still > > In any case, this is 20 year old technology. Aren''t > patents something to > protect new ideas? > > Boy, those guys must be really dumb to waste their time filing > billion > dollar lawsuits, protecting 20-year old technology, when it''s > so obvious > that you and other people clearly invented it before them, and > all the money > they waste on lawyers can never achieve anything. They should > all fire > themselves. And anybody who defends against it can safely > hire a law > student for $20/hr to represent them, and just pull out your > documents as > defense, because that''s so easy. > > Plus, as you said, the technology is so old, it should be > worthless by now. > Why are we all wasting our time in this list talking about > irrelevant old > technology, anyway? > > > While that''s a bit sarcastic there Ned, it *should* be the > literal truth. But, as the SCO/Linux suit showed, having no > realistic basis for a lawsuit doesn''t prevent one from being > dragged through the (U.S.) courts for the better part of a decade. > > <sigh> > > Why can''t we have a loser-pays civil system like every other > civilized country? > > > -- > Erik Trimble > Java System Support > Mailstop: usca22-123 > Phone: x17195 > Santa Clara, CA > Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800) > > > > If you''ve got enough money, we do. You just have to make it to the > end of the trial, and have a judge who feels similar. They often > award monetary settlements for the cost of legal defense to the victor. > > --Tim >Which is completely useless as a system. I''m still significantly out-of-pocket for a suit that I shouldn''t have had to fight in the first place, and the likelihood that I get to recover that money isn''t good (defense cost awards aren''t common). There''s no disincentive to trolling the legal system, forcing settlements on those unable to fight a protracted suit, even if they''re sure to win the case. Using the US legal system as a business strategy is evil, pure and simple, and one all too common nowadays. -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20101225/4c669e60/attachment.html>
Erik Trimble <erik.trimble at oracle.com> wrote:> I''ve read Joerg''s paper, and I''ve read several of the patents in > question, and nowhere around is there any real code. A bit ofNetapp filed patents (without code) in 1993, I of course have working code for SuinOS-4.9 from 1991. Se below for more information.> pseudo-code and some math, but no full, working code. And, granted that > I''m not a IP lawyer, but it does look like Joerg''s work is prior art > (and, given that the standard is supposed to be what someone in the > industry would consider obvious, based on their knowledge, and I think I > qualify). Which all points to the real problem of software patents - > they''re really patents on IDEAS, not on a specific implementation. Who > the moron was that really though that was OK (yes, I know who > specifically, but in general...) should be shot. > > Copyright is fine or protecting software work, but patents? > > Joerg - your paper used to be available here (which is where I read it > awhile ago), but not anymore: > http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/wofs.ps.gzThis address did go away in 2001 when the German government enforced integration of GMD into Fraunhofer. The old postscript version (created from troff) is here: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/wofs.ps.gz A few years ago, a friend helped me to add the images that originally have been created outside of troff and inserted the old way (using glue). Since 2006, there is a pdf version that includes the images: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/WoFS.pdf> Is there a better location? (and, a full English translation? I read > it in German, but my German is maybe at 7th-grade level, so I might have > missed some subtleties...)There is currently no English tranlation and as a result of the legal situation in 1991, I could not publish the related implementation. Even getting the SunOS-4.0 source code in 1988 in order to allow the implementation, was a bit tricky. Horst Winterhoff (Chief Sun Germany and Sun Europe) asked Bill Joy for a permission to give away the source for my Diploma Thesis. As a result of this and the fact that there was no official howto from Sun for writing filesystems, I was forced to keep the implementation unpublished (as for the implementation of mmap() in wofs, I was forced to copy aprox. 100 lines from the UFS code). Since June 2005, I would asume that the situation is different and there is no longer a problem to publish the WOFS source. If people are interested, I could publish the unedit original state from 1991 (including the SCCS history for my implementation) even though it looks a bit messy. I tried to verify whether the submission of the diploma thesis in 1991 is an official publication and in theory it should be, as a copy is stored in the univertity library. Unfortunately, the university library is uanble to find the paper. There are however many people who could confirm that the development really happened between 1988 and 1991. Maybe, it is a good idea to send a mail to someone from eff.org? J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (Joerg Schilling) wrote:> Erik Trimble <erik.trimble at oracle.com> wrote: > > > I''ve read Joerg''s paper, and I''ve read several of the patents in > > question, and nowhere around is there any real code. A bit of > > Netapp filed patents (without code) in 1993, I of course have working code for > SuinOS-4.9 from 1991. Se below for more information.Sorry for the sticky fingers: this of course should be SunOS-4.0. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
On 12/25/2010 12:16 PM, Joerg.Schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de wrote:> Erik Trimble<erik.trimble at oracle.com> wrote: >> I''ve read Joerg''s paper, and I''ve read several of the patents in >> question, and nowhere around is there any real code. A bit of > Netapp filed patents (without code) in 1993, I of course have working code for > SuinOS-4.9 from 1991. Se below for more information. >> Joerg - your paper used to be available here (which is where I read it >> awhile ago), but not anymore: >> http://www.fokus.gmd.de/research/cc/glone/employees/joerg.schilling/private/wofs.ps.gzI just re-looked, and I now remember that I got it from that URL via the Internet Archive (www.internet.org). It''s still available at the URL above from 2001 at the Archive.> This address did go away in 2001 when the German government enforced > integration of GMD into Fraunhofer. > > The old postscript version (created from troff) is here: > > http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/wofs.ps.gz > > A few years ago, a friend helped me to add the images that originally have been > created outside of troff and inserted the old way (using glue). Since 2006, > there is a pdf version that includes the images: > > http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/WoFS.pdf > >> Is there a better location? (and, a full English translation? I read >> it in German, but my German is maybe at 7th-grade level, so I might have >> missed some subtleties...) > There is currently no English tranlation and as a result of the legal situation > in 1991, I could not publish the related implementation. Even getting the > SunOS-4.0 source code in 1988 in order to allow the implementation, was a bit > tricky. Horst Winterhoff (Chief Sun Germany and Sun Europe) asked Bill Joy for > a permission to give away the source for my Diploma Thesis. As a result of > this and the fact that there was no official howto from Sun for writing > filesystems, I was forced to keep the implementation unpublished (as for the > implementation of mmap() in wofs, I was forced to copy aprox. 100 lines from > the UFS code).If the code you copied is currently still in the OpenSolaris codebase, then you''re OK. But, the SunOS codebase is significantly different than the Solaris one, so I wouldn''t automatically assume that you can publish that code. Though, if your borrowing was restricted to the UFS implementation (and not the Virtual Memory/Filesystem caching stuff), your chances are good that it''s still in the OpenSolaris codebase.> Since June 2005, I would asume that the situation is different and there is no > longer a problem to publish the WOFS source. If people are interested, I could > publish the unedit original state from 1991 (including the SCCS history for my > implementation) even though it looks a bit messy.For at least historical reasons, that would be nice. Though, I don''t want to offer legal advice as to the possibility of problems, particularly for someone outside the US system. :-)> I tried to verify whether the submission of the diploma thesis in 1991 is an > official publication and in theory it should be, as a copy is stored in the > univertity library. Unfortunately, the university library is uanble to find the > paper. There are however many people who could confirm that the development > really happened between 1988 and 1991. >If your thesis paper was available via Lexisnexis, then, it certainly should count as officially published for any legal system. If not, I suspect that different countries would have different standards for university thesis.> Maybe, it is a good idea to send a mail to someone from eff.org? > > J?rgYup. They''d be the right people to talk to. -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)