[gentoo-doc] Re: Pentoo-installer

[Duncan]

wireless posted on Fri, 01 Nov 2013 08:12:09 -0400 as excerpted:

> On 11/01/13 01:42, Duncan wrote:
>
>> [Wireless posted...]
>>
>>> The only problem I see [with the pentoo installer] is that it
>>> does not offer ZFS in the menu during installation.
>>
>> AFAIK once you start shipping binaries (as an installer with that
>> choice would be doing) you end up in a legal gray area due to
>> Sun-now-Oracle's refusal to GPL the ZFS code.  Some would therefore
>> consider that lack a feature, not a bug.[3] =:^)
>
> This would only be the initial install. Once you issue "emerge --sync"
> does it not pull down sources?

But if those sources aren't GPL compatible (and they aren't), at least 
with the kernel module zfs, there's still a potential GPL violation if a 
binary is distributed.  A /user/ is free to do whatever they want to 
their own machine, including building/linking/running GPL and GPL 
incompatible sources, but once they distribute that binary, they're no 
longer just a user and run afoul of the gpl due to that binary 
distribution, regardless of whether sources are available for both the GPL 
side and the other side, or not.

That in general gentoo only distributes build-scripts which pull down 
sources which are then built, NOT executable binaries, generally keeps 
gentoo out of legal hot water in a number of areas including both gpl 
binary-distribution violations and potential patent issues that the 
binary distros have to deal with.  But distributing an installer with the 
binaries is an exception to the general gentoo rule, since it /does/ 
involve distributing executable binaries, and as such, there are far more 
legal restrictions, both in terms of GPLed binaries, and for anything 
(like the various media codecs, tho fortunately they're not normally on a 
simple installer, but they COULD be in package disc images!) a patent is 
known to cover.

Of course to the best of my knowledge, pentoo is independent of gentoo 
and thus we wouldn't be directly affected.  Were it to ship zfs in the 
installer, the potential gpl violation wouldn't be our legal problem, but 
theirs.  Still, it's nothing we should be encouraging.

Of course there's also the zfs-fuse project, userspace zfs, that is AFAIK 
entirely compatible with the kernel's gpl due to the long accepted 
userspace waiver (and I know of no other userspace gpl style problems it 
has, AFAIK it's legal worry free, to the extent /any/ software is at 
least, in this day of software patents).  But AFAIK it's significantly 
slower and has other limitations related to the fact that it runs in 
userspace.

The more political side is that thru its failure to GPL that code despite 
repeated requests, Sun/Oracle has made it *VERY* clear they have no 
interest in supporting fully legal Linux use.  They'd rather it remain a 
legal gray area, thus encouraging at least the corporate types with lots 
of money to lose if there's a battle and it goes wrong, to either stay 
away from zfs on Linux, or preferably, to choose Solaris instead.  And 
there could /well/ be such a battle, which could become VERY costly for 
those involved regardless of which side "wins".  That's one lesson the 
formerly Linux friendly Caldera, later evolved into the SCO Group, made 
*VERY* clear.

That's why zfs remains such a "third rail" untouchable to many in the 
community.  Individual users who don't have much to lose and could switch 
to something other than zfs reasonably quickly if they had to, can do the 
build-your-own that the GPL freely allows as long as you don't 
distribute, and that the zfs license either allows or that Oracle 
currently tolerates (I'm not sure which) and be fine.  But a large 
company would be insane to touch zfs on Linux, as would any binary-
distributing entity large enough to get on the legal radar, and that's 
apparently /exactly/ how Oracle wants to keep things, so here we are...

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman