Re:Native port of ZFS for Linux
by jbronn on Friday June 04, 2010 @01:44PM
(#1405007)
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.
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.