Oracle works on Dtrace for Linux (The H) [LWN.net]

Oracle works on Dtrace for Linux (The H)

Posted Oct 6, 2011 23:25 UTC (Thu) by cmccabe (guest, #60281)
In reply to: Oracle works on Dtrace for Linux (The H) by drag
Parent article: Oracle works on Dtrace for Linux (The H)

> 1. Take advantage of lack of patent protections in the Linux
> kernel and keep the patent licensing separate from the
> copyright licensing.

GPLv2 does provide an implicit patent license:

http://en.swpat.org/wiki/GPLv2_and_patents

> 2. Take advantage of the fact that copyright controls can only be extended
> to derived works. If they figure out a way to use dtrace in the Linux
> kernel in a way that leaves it relatively unmodified then there is no
> effective way that it can be claimed as derived works...

I think this is exactly what they'll do. Set up a GPLv2 shim layer, and leave the core code as CDDL.

Of course, it will never be upstreamed, and will need constant maintenance to stay in sync with the rest of the kernel. However, Oracle has the money and the engineers to keep it going.

Hopefully this will motivate people to finally improve and unify the upstream Linux tracing situation...

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Oracle works on Dtrace for Linux (The H)

Posted Oct 7, 2011 13:00 UTC (Fri) by simlo (subscriber, #10866) [Link]

This is my interpretation of GPLv2:

Linux with DTrace kernel modules will be one program and must as a whole be under GPLv2. Linux+DTrace is a derived work of Linux.

You can distribute Linux with some DTrace stubs as GPLv2. Then DTrace under another license can be distributed as that is clearly not a derived work of Linux - the same way NVidia distributes their grapics driver.