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

[blu-Z8efaSeK1ezqlBn2x/YWAg at public.gmane.org (Edward Ned Harvey)]

> On Feb 21, 2010, at 12:21 AM, Edward Ned Harvey wrote:
> >
> > The terms of the Linux, solaris, and windows kernels are all mutually
> > exclusive.  You can't take any code from one and build it into any
> other.
> > So how can you get the portability across OSes?
> 
> Not code portability.  Filesystem portability.  We don't have that and
> because of the CDDL we never will.

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?

BTRFS and EXT3 are both GPL, and have the same problem.  You won't be able
to use it on any OS other than Linux, unless you do it in user space.


> > As long as it loads into the kernel, what's the problem?
> 
> >From my perspective, both as a user and a sysmonster, ZFS not being in
> the kernel is a losing proposition.  Never mind not having cross-

I don't think you're getting what I'm saying.  Let me repeat:  "As long as
it loads into the kernel, what's the problem?"  And then your response is
"ZFS not being in the kernel is a losing proposition."  Point is:  Yes, it's
able to run in kernel space, without causing legality conflicts.

By building ZFS as a module, and distributing it separately from the kernel,
you're able to have ZFS in the kernel.

The only obstacle is, initially, the boot volume couldn't be ZFS, because
the kernel would need to find and load the module.  But that is not an
insurmountable obstacle, and would not last long, due to consumer demand.