Published at LXer:

ZFS is an advanced filesystem created by Sun Microsystems but not supported in the Linux kernel. The ZFS_on_FUSE project allows you to use ZFS through the Linux kernel as a FUSE filesystem. This means that a ZFS filesystem will be accessible just like any other filesystem the Linux kernel lets you use. Apart from any technical or funding issues, a major reason that ZFS support has not been integrated into the Linux kernel is that Sun has released it under its Common Development and Distribution License, which is incompatible with the GPL used by the kernel. There are also patent issues with ZFS. However, the source code for ZFS is available, and running ZFS through FUSE does not violate any licenses, because you are not linking CDDL and GPL code together. You're on your own as far as patents go.

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