Uptake of native Linux ZFS port hampered by license conflict
A group of open source software developers working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have implemented a native Linux port of Sun's ZFS filesystem. Although the code is functional and available for download (but not production-ready yet), it cannot be merged upstream or shipped in binary form with the Linux kernel due to a licensing conflict. Sun distributes the OpenSolaris source code under its own Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL), which is incompatible with GNU's General Public License (GPL).
ZFS is an innovative 128-bit filesystem with a number of powerful features, such as a sophisticated storage pooling mechanism that simplifies volume management. The filesystem is arguably one of the crown jewels of the Solaris platform. Although ZFS is open-source software, licensing compatibility issues have prevented it from widely adopted on the Linux platform. Users who run ZFS on Linux today generally do so through FUSE, a framework that allows filesystems to run in userspace. This avoids the licensing issues because it provides a layer of separation between the CDDL-licensed ZFS code and the GPL-licensed Linux kernel.
