Re: Question
We had these exact arguments years ago. In the US, a creator has copyright and may restrict use and derivative uses of her creation. The law governing infringement is civil law, but there are instances when, if one infringes upon the wrong thing, the FBI comes and arrest you.
Commercial software writers specify the terms of use in an EULA as per their rights as a copyright holder, and disputes over an allegedly unlicensed use are pursued against purchasers under contract law.
No one has permission to use GPL software, or any software under copyright, except they receive a license. There is an allowance for fair use, and while ZFS on Ubuntu may be rationalized under that basis, I expect that a Court would have to decide. I expect that Canonical's positive advice hinges on ZFS being licensable by the end user and that Canonical does know how to distribute non-GPL software to users.
My personal opinion? I can license GNU software to run on my FreeBSD and OS X systems. If a Linux distributor wants to include a non-GPL file system to improve integrity and function for the user, it should be possible without one author coercing another author to change his license. As the catalyst for the GPL was a vendor's withdrawal of code that Stallman was using at MIT, it would be ironic to use the GPL to have Canonical withdraw its packaging of ZFS. I think Stallman should let this be, because if the slippery slope is to more user choices and inclusion of better technology, let's slide. GPL software's importance will not be diminished.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
