Re: [gentoo-user] Optional /usr merge in Gentoo

[Alan McKinnon]

On 27/08/2013 09:53, Joerg Schilling wrote:
> Alan McKinnon <alan.mckinnon@×××××.com> wrote:
>
>> The issue is that the Linux kernel devs consider the license terms for
>> ZFS to be incompatible with GPL-2.0 and therefore ZFS cannot be
>> redistributed as a Linux kernel module.
>
> Isn't it strange that those people seem to have less problems with closed
> source than with a license that gives more freedom than the GPL? But
> you are correct that the problem seem to be humans and not a license text.

You are aware that the GPL was not really intended to be used together
with other licenses? It was really intended to create an entire
operating system, all of which was 100% licensed as GPL, all of which
comprise an original work written from scratch

Stallman never makes this claim as bluntly as I've said it here, but
it's the only intelligent reading of his intent as far as I can make
out. This is why so many arguments arise over the GPL, the wording of
that license was not really intended to have it co-exist with other
licenses.

That's how I see it anyway.

>
>> There's nothing in the GPL-2 to stop you as a user from building and
>> running ZFS on Linux, as GPL does not interfere with your right to run
>> whatever you wish. The GPL only kicks in when code is redistributed.
>
> There is nothing non-void in the GPL that stops you from distributing binaries.

That's a question of packaging and bundling, which is not covered by the
GPL. But kernel code and kernel modules are not mere bundles, they are
derivative works by virtue of how tightly they integrate with the
kernel, and how the code can only ever run unchanged on Linux.

That is how ZFS as a fuse module works, no license issues with the
kernel there at all.

-- 
Alan McKinnon
alan.mckinnon@×××××.com