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[bug#45692] [PATCH 0/3] Better Support for ZFS on Guix
From: |
Maxime Devos |
Subject: |
[bug#45692] [PATCH 0/3] Better Support for ZFS on Guix |
Date: |
Thu, 17 Mar 2022 18:22:04 +0100 |
User-agent: |
Evolution 3.38.3-1 |
Liliana Marie Prikler schreef op do 17-03-2022 om 09:24 [+0100]:
> In any case, I've added Maxime to CC so they can have a closer look at
> it.
I have been more-or-less ignoring the ZFS patches since some time after
<https://issues.guix.gnu.org/45692#44>. If ZFS people(^), after a
disagreement about licensing concerns, directly jump to accusations of
gaslighting and sabogate, completely ignoring my previous arguments (*)
without trying to refute any of them or bringing new arguments, then I
don't want to be involved with ZFS.
(^) So far only Mason Loring Bliss, _not_ raid5atemyhomework!
Also, the various ‘work-arounds’ around the GPL<->CDLL incompatibility
still seem super fishy to me even if they _might_ be technically
correct. To me, this makes reviewing the code practically pointless --
why review the zfs service patches if they will have to be reverted
due to incompatibility concerns anyway? Summarised:
* The ‘Oracle does not care so no legal risk’ argument:
- Oracle might not care, but there are other parties involved as
well (e.g. the Linux people and contributors to OpenZFS).
- Not getting caught doesn't mean things are above board. It just
means you haven't got caught, and you might get caught later.
- Has anyone actually ever asked Oracle for some official ‘yes,
go ahead’ / ‘no, here's a DMCA notice / see you at YYYY-MM-DD
in court’ / ‘no, but you're too small fry to bother so you'll
get away for it ... for now’ response?
AFAICT, this has not been done.
- Even if it would be very strange for Oracle to try to stop (the
Linux part of(*)) OpenZFS, why would that stop Oracle and how
would the odd behaviour actually legally matter?
* The ‘zfs package is already in Guix’ argument
(https://issues.guix.gnu.org/45692#47): then it should be
reverted when the incompatibility is discovered.
Also, the incompatibility issue has been noted before:
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2019-04/msg00404.html
though it appears to have been forgotten in
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-patches/2019-12/msg00543.html
presumably because different people were involved?
* The ‘Guix is not distributing the source code, it's only pointing
to the source code’ argument:
- We do distribute the source code, at https://ci.guix.gnu.org
- probably also via our friends at SWH
- and via the Wayback Machine fallback
- possibly also to any Guix users on the local network, when using
'--advertise' and '--discover'
- and by delegating the distributing to the OpenZFS project
- even if pointing to the tarball OpenZFS web would not count as
distribution, assuming there's a license incompatibility (and
hence, the Linux part of OpenZFS is illegal (*), wouldn't this
pointing count as facilitation of a crime (or misdemeanor or
contract breach or whatever's the local terminology), wouldn't
this make Guix or individuals behind Guix accomplishes?
- even if it's all legal, what about freedom 3 -- the freedom
to distribute the program?
- also, not being able to distribute the source code by ourselves
seems rather inconvenient
* The ‘we're not doing binary distribution’ argument:
- That seems rather inconvenient, why not use BTRFS instead which
seems quite capable and doesn't have this weird restriction?
- Freedom 3 is:
‘The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others
(freedom 2).’ Guix redistributes copies is a convenient form,
to help all users (‘others’). To help the users, it not only
redistributes in source form, but also in binary form
(substitutes). But the CDDL+GPL combination stops us from
helping others by redistributing binary copies!
Basically, if there's the freedom to redistribute copies,
shouldn't this include _binary_ copies, especially when
binaries are convenient?
- We _are_ doing binary distribution:
(here, ‘we’ includes all relevant users of Guix)
An uninitiated user might do "guix system image ..." to
produce an image (that happens to include a binary ZFS),
dutifully uses "guix build --sources=transitive" and share
the sources+binary with other people, and accidentally commit
a violation.
All the initrd, system image and "guix pack" would need to
propagate unsubstitutability (and the top-level tools might need
to error out) and this needs to be tested, AFAIK this has not
been done.
* The ‘we're not distributing _modified_ source code’ argument:
Freedom 4! We should be able to (legally) distribute modified
source code as well.
* Various ’technically, because of Section 1 (bis) alpha Z of this
license, Paragraph 2 beta 3 of that license, this and that clause
do not apply’ arguments:
This seems to be missing the spirit, and the law is, to my limited
knowledge, not a deterministic automaton with an exact mathematical
formulation without any bit flips.
Greetings,
Maxime.
(*) The BSD modules are presumably fine though (unverified)! But Guix
does _not_ (currently) support BSDs.
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