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The single "zfs.ko" file that contains the ZFS kernel module is derived from both the ZFS sources and the Linux kernel sources, because you need the Linux kernel sources to link a module with the Linux kernel.

(Actually I think you just need the headers, but those are GPLv2 anyway, so the distinction is irrelevant.)




Actually they are LGPL, according to other posts in this thread. Which would make it perfectly OK.

I'm not well enough traversed in the kernel source to find a direct reference but you see commits like this every now and then:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux....

Having parts of the kernel LGPLed doesn't seem like an unusual or odd thing, from what I can tell:

https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux....


Of the 9 commits listed there, 2 are removing LGPL headers, 2 are adding LGPL headers to scripts which aren't linked into the kernel, 1 is relicensing a header file so it can be used outside the kernel, 1 is changing from linking against an external GPL3 library to an LGPL2 library without changing the licence of the tool that's in the kernel tree, 1 is an author noting that he's bringing in some external LGPL code which he wrote and is relicensing, 1 is a commit removing a driver and noting that an LGPLed userspace replacement exists, and 1 is noting an external LGPL userspace tool in the MAINTAINERS file.

So of all of those, literally 1 is changing the licence to LGPL.

A better search is https://github.com/torvalds/linux/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=%2..., which reveals 147 results in the code.

This is still tiny, given that the kernel is a ~20 million LOC codebase, so yes, I would call LGPL code in the kernel an unusual thing.


Hmm. I suppose if you could show that the Linux kernel source files required to build zfs.ko were all LGPL, then distributing it as a binary module might actually be legal.




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