Re:Native port of ZFS for Linux
by jws on Friday June 04, 2010 @11:51AM
(#1404635)
Did the ZFS patents ever get sorted out? The US government needn't worry about this, they have an exemption, but the rest of the world should care. Sun has a truckload of patents on ZFS that, last I'd heard, they were not granting free to ZFS users, and NetApp thought they had a patent on it as well, at least enough to sue Sun.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
ZFS is released under the CDDL 1.0. The terms of the CDDL (§2.1) grant a "a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license" for any patent claims "infringed by the making, using or selling of" ZFS now owned or later aqcuired by Sun/Oracle.
Thus, typical ZFS users cannot be sued for infringing on the patents that Oracle holds on ZFS technology. However, this does not preclude third-parties (e.g., NetApp) from pursuing patent claims that they believe are infringed by ZFS -- but this is just as true with any other technology (think MS suing Garmin over FAT in Linux).
Liability for infringement on Oracle's ZFS patents is possible if a user does not comply with the terms of the CDDL. For example, modifying the ZFS source code and distributing it using a license other than the CDDL would be a breach of the license terms (§3.1), and thus forgo any patent license. The Apache 2.0 license has similar terms regarding patent rights.
(think MS suing Garmin over FAT in Linux)
If the patents were a big issue I don't think we would have ZFS in FreeBSD.
I don't think the rest of the world cares that much. US software patents don't mean much to anyone outside the country...
Yeah I doubt RIM would agree with you. That is just one example.
I don't get this reference. Links?