[Info-vax] openvms and xterm

[Matthew R. Wilson]

On 2024-05-15, Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo at nz.invalid> wrote:
> On Tue, 14 May 2024 17:01:52 -0000 (UTC), Matthew R. Wilson wrote:
>
>> OpenZFS, the only version of ZFS that runs on Linux, would remain
>> incompatible with the GPL.
>
> So you are of the opinion that the CDDL is incompatible with the GPL? 
> Because this seems to be a matter of contention, and Ubuntu for one 
> doesn’t seem to agree.

I agree that it's a point of contention. But I personally know somebody
who was in the room when Sun directed the lawyers to come up with an
alternative copyleft license that was incompatible with the GPL. Whether
they were successful is open for debate, but I have high confidence that
a goal of the CDDL (for at least some within Sun) was, in fact, GPL
incompatibility.

I'm not sure Canonical disagrees that it's incompatible, I suspect they
are more just gambling that nobody will take them to court over it (i.e.
Oracle may have more to gain letting the uncertainty remain out there
versus taking the risk of losing and having case law on the books
against the idea that it's incompatible or that it even matters at all).

> If Oracle were to bundle OpenZFS with Linux, that would settle the issue 
> once and for all, wouldn’t it?

As far as we know, Oracle's lawyers are telling them the CDDL is,
indeed, incompatible and if Oracle bundles OpenZFS with their Linux, the
OpenZFS contributors could take action against them! lol

But, my speculation is obviously of little value. The real fact we can
see is that Oracle has had _plenty_ of time and opportunity to move in
that direction, and they haven't, so while we don't know their reasons,
we do know their decision.

-Matthew