[jws]

Did the ZFS patents ever get sorted out? The US government needn't worry about this, they have an exemption, but the rest of the world should care. Sun has a truckload of patents on ZFS that, last I'd heard, they were not granting free to ZFS users, and NetApp thought they had a patent on it as well, at least enough to sue Sun.

[jbronn]

ZFS is released under the CDDL 1.0. The terms of the CDDL (§2.1) grant a "a world-wide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license" for any patent claims "infringed by the making, using or selling of" ZFS now owned or later aqcuired by Sun/Oracle.

Thus, typical ZFS users cannot be sued for infringing on the patents that Oracle holds on ZFS technology. However, this does not preclude third-parties (e.g., NetApp) from pursuing patent claims that they believe are infringed by ZFS -- but this is just as true with any other technology (think MS suing Garmin over FAT in Linux).

Liability for infringement on Oracle's ZFS patents is possible if a user does not comply with the terms of the CDDL. For example, modifying the ZFS source code and distributing it using a license other than the CDDL would be a breach of the license terms (§3.1), and thus forgo any patent license. The Apache 2.0 license has similar terms regarding patent rights.

[Confusion]

  (think MS suing Garmin over FAT in Linux)

OT: That was TomTom, not Garmin

[X-Istence]

If the patents were a big issue I don't think we would have ZFS in FreeBSD.

[viraptor]

I don't think the rest of the world cares that much. US software patents don't mean much to anyone outside the country...

[st3fan]

Yeah I doubt RIM would agree with you. That is just one example.

[viraptor]

I don't get this reference. Links?

[jedsmith]

http://www.wirelessweek.com/News/2010/05/Policy-and-Industry...