Linux kernel: Torvalds is against ZFS in Linux

For historical reasons, the ZFS file system is still under the CDDL license, which, according to some lawyers and above all, according to the Linux kernel developers, is not compatible with the GPL. Therefore, ZFS is not available in the main branch of the Linux kernel, but only as an external module. Nothing will change there in the long term, as chief developer and project founder Linus Torvalds once again confirms.

The licensing problem Torvalds writes in a forum: “Honestly, there is no way to keep the ZFS efforts going until I get an official letter from Oracle signed by their chief lawyer, or preferably Larry Ellison himself, that says it’s okay to do that and treat the end result as a GPL. “ Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle, long-time CEO of the company and now serves as Oracle’s chief technology officer.

There are some Linux distributions that still use the external ZFS module like Ubuntu, However, Torvalds writes with reference to this: “But given the process-addictive nature of Oracle and licensing issues, I can’t feel sure I will ever do this”, The upstream community of the Linux kernel has been opposed to the use of ZFS in various Linux distributions for years, which Torvalds has now reaffirmed.

External ZFS causes problems

Since ZFS is not included in the main branch, this always causes problems. For example, because the ZFS developers some interfaces can no longer be used, When asked why this happened and, for example, after ZFS kernel upgrades stopped working, Torvalds only replied: “I can’t take care of it”, If developers or users use external modules, they are on their own from the developers of the main branch.

Nothing will change in the foreseeable future. Even if ZFS cannot be entered directly because of the license, Torvalds does not consider an intermediate layer as an abstraction for ZFS to be a good idea. Because here, too, the problem with licensing basically remains. “Doesn’t use ZFS. It’s that simple”, writes Torvalds. Ultimately, ZFS also has hardly any technical advantages, as benchmarks would prove.

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