thx, ed.

this is a case where I am wondering whether EVERYONE, including all
the commercial contributors to btrfs, would be better off with another
additional license that also allowed kernel integration for companies
like Apple.   the decision-making (and rights) for btrfs are so
dispersed, however, that we may all end up with a worse outcome,
including the commercial and other contributors.  (perhaps, it would
be worth asking them, if a mailing list of contributors to btrfs
existed.)

I am and I am not a fan of Apple.  they scare me.  I am afraid that
Apple will be much worse than IBM and Microsoft ever were.  I would
rather not see them get more than 20% market share.  still, the world
is what it is.

now, specifically, which contributors to btrfs would it hurt if Apple
were allowed to integrate the code into its kernel to make btrfs its
main file system?

I can only think of Microsoft as a company that might be hurt.  FAT is
the universal file system now, and it could lose that status.
Microsoft may not have wanted to contribute to btrfs in this case to
begin with.  did they ever contribute here?

I cannot imagine that any server company, like Sun, Oracle, or IBM,
would be worse off if OSX and linux would both use btrfs.  it would
probably make their life a whole lot easier.

linux on the desktop would be MUCH better off compared to the current
situation with everyone using their own almost-compatible file system,
and more so than OSX on the desktop would be better off.  (linux on
the server would probably be mildly better off, but here one can argue
that Apple would get more than it contributes.)  besides, the btrfs
system would control the evolution of btrfs, not Apple.

just my two cents...

/iaw


On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 7:00 PM, Edward Ned Harvey <kernel@nedharvey.co=
m> wrote:

quoted

From: linux-btrfs-owner@vger.kernel.org [mailto:linux-btrfs-
owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of ivo welch

curiosity question---could btrfs be licensed in multiple ways to all=

ow

quoted

Apple and other vendors to adopt it?

No. =A0The source code is copyrighted by many different entities, and=

 the only

way to release it under any other license would require all of the
contributors to mutually agree. =A0It'll never happen. =A0Likewise, p=

erhaps

Apple could release their code under a license that's compatible with=

 GPL,

but I seriously doubt that would ever happen.

quoted

as end users, having one good
file system that works everywhere as a main root system would be
heaven...

Agreed. =A0But the various producers of filesystems are generally com=

mercial

entities interested in making a profit. =A0For various reasons, many =

of them

intentionally don't go this direction. =A0They're all trying to diffe=

rentiate

themselves.

Generally speaking, the problem is the requirement to integrate some =

other

FS into a kernel or other component that requires license compatibili=

ty for

booting. =A0Generally speaking you can circumvent this problem by usi=

ng things

like Fuse to mount a filesystem in user space, thus not requiring it =

to be

built into the kernel, thus eliminating any license compatibility pro=

blems.

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