ZFS woes (was Re: Backing up sparse files ... VM's and TrueCrypt ... etc)

[Edward Ned Harvey]

> > Perhaps this is just semantics, but how can you blame CDDL more than
> you
> > blame GPL or whatever proprietary license MS uses?  They're just
> water and
> > oil.  How can one be more at fault than the other?
> 
> Because it isn't the GPL at fault here.  ZFS on OS X was killed because
> of the CDDL.  No GPL involvement.

I give up.  If you insist on taking sides, be my guest.  But you're wrong.

For the record, ZFS was not killed on OSX exclusively because of CDDL.  It
was killed because of a combination of CDDL and Apple's proprietary license
agreement.  Just like every other filesystem that has been killed on any
other platform, it's not exclusively the fault of the license terms of the
FS, or the OS.  It's a combination of the FS & OS license terms being
incompatible with each other.

Yes, it is possible to write code under license terms that allow it to be
ported to whatever.  I think the Lesser GPL does this.  But gnu officially
discourages the Lesser GPL, stating in long-winded terms, that you shouldn't
allow free software to be ported to commercial applications.
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html

The GPL has the same problem as CDDL ... You have the same obstacles to port
EXT3 to Windows or OSX as you would have, to port ZFS to Windows or OSX.