Re: ZFS part of Guix? RFC?

[raid5atemyhomework]

Hello Denis,


> While thinking about this very weird case of combining GPL and CDDL
> code together, I wonder if the fact that we can't redistribute binaries
> still makes it free software.

AS I understood from early writings of GNU ---

"Freedom" here is the freedom to modify how *the hardware you purchased, which 
is supposedly your own*, works.

In principle, "binaries are enough", because you *can* modify executable 
binaries, and until Tivoization you could thus modify how the hardware you 
purchased and is supposedly owned by you works.  However, early GNU writers 
(RMS I think?) noted that binaries are really awful and that you need source 
code in order to modify how your hardware work, unless you are willing to 
sacrifice a ridiculous portion of your life reverse-engineering executable 
binaries.

As long as the source code is redistributable, users can modify the source code 
(without having to sacrifice too much of their limited lifetimes to the gods of 
extreme programming) and thereby modify how the hardware they purchased works.

Thus, the essential freedom is preserved (users can fork ZFS and point their 
personal ZFS package definition at their fork), even if a legal snag prevents 
redistribution of binaries.


I am well aware that *somebody* at Sun Microsystems screwed up by inventing the 
CDDL and putting the excellent ZFS under the CDDL and that is certainly a very 
cringey decision, but I want my hardware to work how I want it (i.e. without 
RAID5 write holes and memory buffer corruption bugs like in BTRFS "RAID5" mode) 
and not having ZFS on Guix is not helping that essential freedom.

Thanks
raid5atemyhomework