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From devnull@lkml.org Fri Apr 26 20:16:11 2024 Delivery-date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 15:00:00 +0000 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754447AbXDQO7e (ORCPT ); Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:59:34 -0400 Received: from odyssey.analogic.com ([204.178.40.5]:4241 "EHLO odyssey.analogic.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754338AbXDQO7d convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:59:33 -0400 Received: from chaos.analogic.com ([10.112.50.11]) by phoenix.analogic.com with Microsoft SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.211); Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:59:29 -0400 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5 Received: from chaos.analogic.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by chaos.analogic.com (8.12.11/8.12.11) with ESMTP id l3HExSgF016894; Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:59:28 -0300 Received: (from linux-os@localhost) by chaos.analogic.com (8.12.11/8.12.11/Submit) id l3HExRdu016893; Tue, 17 Apr 2007 11:59:27 -0300 X-OriginalArrivalTime: 17 Apr 2007 14:59:29.0324 (UTC) FILETIME=[FFB2CEC0:01C78100] content-class: urn:content-classes:message Subject: Re: ZFS with Linux: An Open Plea Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:59:27 -0400 Message-Id: In-Reply-To: <20070417131045.GB18373@thunk.org> X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: ZFS with Linux: An Open Plea Thread-Index: AceBAP+8uc8Xea7JSuWs5xqFDPwaXg== References: <20070417131045.GB18373@thunk.org> From: "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" To: "Theodore Tso" Cc: "David R. Litwin" , "Linux kernel" Reply-To: "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Tue, 17 Apr 2007, Theodore Tso wrote: > On Tue, Apr 17, 2007 at 02:54:32AM -0400, David R. Litwin wrote: >>> The license that protects the code we write is far from nonsense. >> >> I know. In the end, this is the reason this topic is being discussed. >> >> I suggest the first thing you do is contact the ZFS developers and >> convince them to release their code under a license that's GPL >> compatible, then we can start looking at a Linux port. >> >> I began by contacting them. One of the devs there told me to contact the >> Linux devs. > > Well, that was totally useless answer from the ZFS developers. What > he should have told you is to contact Sun management, since they are > the only ones who can decide whether or not to release ZFS under a GPL > license, and more importantly, to give a patent license for any > patents they may have filed in the course of developing ZFS. This is > not anything Linux developers can help you with. > > - Ted Copyright law protects an implementation, not a specification. If there is a specification for a particular file-system, then certainly one can create a compatible one without violating any copyrights. Patents protect algorithms and other implementation details. Certainly, there are at least a hundred ways of performing the same function using a programming language, and if you never look at somebody else's' implementation details, you certainly should not be violating a patent. So, what needs to be done is simply find out the specifications of the file-system. From the specifications, one writes compatible code. To protect "IP," you might have to give it a different name than "ZFS," but you certain should be able to write code that handles ZFS format files. The patent (pending) seems to work around the little/big endian issue. So, there is probably something in a header somewhere that resolves this --big deal, machines that are incompatible will have to suffer byte-swapping overhead. There are also 64-bit checksums for some reason. I guess they have bad hardware and needed a work-around. The 128-bit file-size follows the, "if a little is good, more must be better..." logic that became prevalent in industry once sales persons and accountants took over engineering. Cheers, Dick Johnson Penguin : Linux version 2.6.16.24 on an i686 machine (5592.59 BogoMips). New book: http://www.AbominableFirebug.com/ _  **************************************************************** The information transmitted in this message is confidential and may be privileged. 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