[Discuss] ZFS

[tmetro-blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

matt at ciranttechnologies.com wrote:
> ZFS was released under the CDDL license, which is open source...there
> is no ground for infringement suits, because everything
> released as open source remains in the community.

A software license generally addresses copyright restrictions, and not
patents. Unless the CDDL a) grants a royalty free use of any applicable
Sun/Oracle patents and b) indemnifies against third party patent claims
against ZFS, any user of a project incorporating ZFS has liability
exposure to patent suits. (The same can be said for any other open
source software project. Ain't software patents grand?)

CDDL might cover "a", but unlikely it covers "b."

In any case, it is due to the licensing, and not the patents, that keeps
ZFS out of the Linux kernel.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/