If ZFS was re-licensed to be compatible with the GPL, then I'm sure that it would get accepted into the kernel (assuming the code is tidied up as necessary). Now it can be argued that CDDL and GPL are compatible, but that's a risk and Oracle have been known to be litigious whenever it suits them.

From: https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/2094/are-cddl...

> The CDDL is a license that does not try to enforce restrictions that would not stand in court but disallows relicensing of code. The fact that on the other side, the CDDL explicitly limits its scope to the files that contain CDDL'd code, allows us make our first conclusion:

> Code under the CDDL and code under the GPL cannot be mixed in a single file.

>The GPL is a license that limits its scope to the so called "work" limit and forbids relicensing of code. This allows us to make the next conclusion:

> Code under the CDDL and code under the GPL cannot be mixed in a single work.

So, that would seem to leave two options - either re-license Linux under a CDDL-compatible license or re-license ZFS under a GPL-compatible license. Clearly re-licensing ZFS would be much easier as it's controlled by a single entity - Oracle.

My opinion is that Oracle are acting in bad faith (probably a default assumption with Oracle to be fair) and deliberately don't want the code to be in Linux.

Oh good we have StackExchange being used as a legal authority.

The point is that legal opinions differ on whether CDDL and GPL are compatible, but Oracle are well known for weaponising legal ambiguities.

> So, that would seem to leave two options - either re-license Linux under a CDDL-compatible license or re-license ZFS under a GPL-compatible license. Clearly re-licensing ZFS would be much easier as it's controlled by a single entity - Oracle.

Oracle's ZFS code is controlled by a single entity, but OpenZFS (which is what you probably want) is a community fork with copyrights owned by a huge list of people and companies.

ZFS people can just change license that was explicity written to be GPL hostile to something non-retarded

No, they literally cannot. The current OpenZFS codebase is the combination of the original Sun/Oracle-owned code and a massive number of new committers. Now, Oracle could relicense the original code, but they can't do anything about the later additions, because they don't own the copyright on those. The only maybe possible carve out is if the code is licensed with something like "CDDL 1.0 or later" then they could make a new version, but I'm not clear on whether that's an option or whether the code is licensed CDDL 1.0-only. IANAL, YMMV. (EDIT: Apparently the CDDL already has a version 1.0 and 1.1? So take exact versions with a grain of salt above.)

This is a myth that keeps coming up, in spite of being debunked time and time and time again. Solaris could not use the GPL because Sun didn't own the rights to all parts, so the GPL's copyleft wouldn't work and they needed a new license.

In hindsight, an explicit "GPL compatibility clause" like the EUPL has would clearly been a wiser choice, but that wasn't clear in 2005, and it's too late for that now, unfortunately.

On the other hand, you could also blame the GPL for not recognizing that other copyleft licenses exist; they also could have written a compatibility clause in GPL 3. "CDDL is incompatible with the GPL" could also be phrased as "GPL is incompatible with the CDDL".

Thank you for fighting the good fight out here in the wilds of the internet! It's so frustrating that the misperceptions on this seem to be uncorrectable -- and it's to the point that I have sadly concluded that the false narrative around this somehow being a CDDL issue is one that people actually want to believe because to know the truth would be to confront Linux's own NIH syndrome, which remains profound.

> I have sadly concluded that the false narrative around this somehow being a CDDL issue is one that people actually want to believe

Yes, I agree; there's a few other topics like this. I call this "hacker conspiracy theories", because at this point that's basically what they are.

I mostly comment on these things for the benefit of innocent onlookers, who were not yet around when all of this went down, and not to convince the person who posted it.

Thanks for clarifying "hair shirt". I'd seen you mention it at least 3 times previously in comments, and was trying to unpack it without doing a search. Thoughts such as "they're quite fond of stylish hair and t-shirts?" and "they like t-shirts with hair designs?". I think my worst take was "they fetishize wearing someone else's chest hair, like a shirt?"

Popped onto DDG just now, and the explains right there. Also "cilice" within the first few links.

I just scrolled a little further in the DDG results to see a hit on Amazon.

After my unexpected laughter, I had to click. The first 2 hits align with my prior misunderstanding - cue more laughter. One is a t-shirt with a graphic of a very hairy chest/abdomen, the other has the likeness of Chewbacca with "Messy hair / don't care".

No need for anyone else to see for yourselves; saved you a click.