LWN: Comments on "Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution"

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

sumanc — Wed, 20 May 2015 13:56:16 +0000

Hello everyone. Just a quick update from the Rockstor team. Back when this review came out we created a milestone with issues raised by the author. We are happy to update that we just closed it. Thanks for the review and to our community for helping us not only close these issues but also many others since the review came out! Here's the link to the milestone for those interested in more information: https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/issues?q=milest...

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

dmoulding — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 23:50:51 +0000

> Now one could quibble about what it means to "own" a copy of a GPL program, but I believe that as long as said copy was acquired via legitimate means, you're fine.

There's really not that much room to quibble.

17 USC section 101:[1]

“Copies” are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.

If you own the material object (hard disk, USB drive, CD-ROM, or whatever) in which the work is fixed, then you own the copy.

[1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

jezuch — Wed, 11 Feb 2015 07:19:54 +0000

> ability to mix different sized disks. This is similar to Unraid

Is it also similar to ZFS's RAID-Z?

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

heavybutterfly920 — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 12:09:15 +0000

We use Rockstor in our office as a place to gather all those drives that came out of other servers, replaced drives, forgotten external disks and so on.

Being able to use different size disks in a RAID is very cool and Rockstor itself is easy and straightforward to use. It is so easy that it is pretty much set and forget.

We looked at freenas, unraid, openmediavault and some others.
What set Rockstor apart for us was the team behind it, whose members are awesomely responsive and very knowledgable and kind, as well as the aforementioned ability to mix different sized disks. This is similar to Unraid, but unraid costs money and development seems slow relative to the iterations and versions released by rockstor.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

spaetz — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 20:03:05 +0000

Just saying thanks to the founder of Rockstor to comment on the review. This is what maks lwn.net a great place. Good luck with rockstor it looks promising.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

sumanc — Sat, 17 Jan 2015 14:20:51 +0000

Hi, I am the founder and maintainer of Rockstor. Thank you for a review that is useful both to the users and developers of Rockstor. I encourage all Linux fans and those of us who care about privacy/control of our data to join our community. The review is true in that our core effort reduces to developing a feature rich and simple to use NAS solution by leveraging BTRFS awesomeness. However, our mission is more expansive. Simply put, we are trying to empower users to better manage data, it's privacy and security in a cloud centric world. Now, I'd like to clarify and answer some questions that readers of the review might have.

It is true that Rockstor is currently most attractive to early adopter types given the leading edge nature of BTRFS. However, I haven't experienced data loss since at least Rockstor 3.0 and use it in production. In fact, we do all our development on Rockstor and build/packages Rockstor on top of Rockstor(Once we release Rock-ons, I'll write a blog post about this). We test a lot and need more of it! Beyond BTRFS, we've been polishing Rockstor to be more reliable and mature with frequent(almost bi-weekly) updates done online with a few clicks from the web-ui.

I totally agree about the USB installation ability. We got around to it literally couple of days after someone(turned out to be the author!) asked for it on the forums. So the current ISO(3.5-5) supports USB install.

We are currently working on pool rebalance(issue#517) post resizing, including raid level migration. The author is correct that current status is incomplete, but I am glad to say that this will be addressed in the next update due in a few days.

Regarding CLI, we have the right design but not all features are implemented. There's very little you can do from the CLI compared to the web-ui. This is intentional as no one has asked about CLI, so our efforts are focused elsewhere at the moment.

I have a similar note on Analytics feature-set. We think it's going to be powerful, perhaps for bigger organizations. They are just not part of the current adoption, but we'd really like to add more support in this area.

We've created(some created even before the review) issues addressing concerns from the review. All these issues are in their own milestone and users can track progress and participate: https://github.com/rockstor/rockstor-core/milestones/LWN%...

On a final note, thanks for the review and I am looking forward to a stronger community and a mo'betta' Rockstor!

USB stick boot fixed

basmevissen — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 14:09:27 +0000

According to http://rockstor.com/forums/index.php?p=/discussion/37/una... is is now possible to boot from USB stick. So that issue was fixed within a week. Nice.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

raven667 — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:54:25 +0000

To be clear, the onus on is the entity distributing the software _to_ you to have the right to make the copy, not on you to prove you are a valid target for receiving it, _they_ are the one making the copy and need a license from the copyright holder.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

nybble41 — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:11:37 +0000

It doesn't say that at all. The following sentence is:

> However, nothing other than this License grants you permission to propagate or modify any covered work.

Nothing there about *running* the software; just "to propagate or modify". You don't need special permission to run software, though the GPLv3 carefully affirms that you have it anyway. The GPLv3 is very clear that you can freely receive and/or run a copy of the software without accepting the GPLv3 license, because you already have these rights *before* accepting any license.

There was a fringe legal theory at one point which posited that one required special permission to install or run software despite already possessing a legal copy, but that theory was discredited decades ago (at least in the U.S.). It was always on very shaky legal ground, akin to handing someone a perfectly legal copy of a book and then claiming that they needed a special license to read it.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

pizza — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:06:20 +0000

> you still need to agree to the GPL to run a copy of the software, because nothing else in the copyright laws allows you to run a copy of the software (copyright laws explicitly forbid it),

(Disclaimer; IANAL, etc..)

That said, at least in the US, this is not true:

17 USC section 117: [1]

(a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.— Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

Now one could quibble about what it means to "own" a copy of a GPL program, but I believe that as long as said copy was acquired via legitimate means, you're fine.

Now there are many other nuances involved here (and for all I know some other law interacts with this in a way that completely inverts its meaning) but on the face of it (at least in the US), assuming you legitimately acquired the software, you do *NOT* need explicit permission from the copyright holder to make a transient copy of the software into RAM (or even to install it), because both are "essential steps" towards utilizing the program.

[1] http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

epa — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 16:01:02 +0000

Are you mixing up the Affero GPL and the GNU GPL?

But yes, an EULA or any kind of purported contract you have to 'agree' to is an additional restriction compared to the GNU GPL. The very most that might be okay is a dialogue box that says 'please check copyright law in your jurisdiction and the terms of the GPL licence; press OK to continue'.

(IMHO, any licence that isn't really a licence but tries to be a contract instead should be considered non-free.)

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

gevaerts — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 12:15:43 +0000

It doesn't tell me that.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

etienne — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 12:08:51 +0000

> The GPL still says "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program"

As the following sentence beginning with "However" tells you in the GPL license, you still need to agree to the GPL to run a copy of the software, because nothing else in the copyright laws allows you to run a copy of the software (copyright laws explicitly forbid it), even if you do not have anything else to do in return if you only run a copy of that GPL software.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

hkario — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 11:41:36 +0000

Using self-signed TLS certificate (and please call it TLS, not SSL, SSL is dead) is preferable to plain HTTP.

At least Firefox will actually do certificate pinning for the server, so provided you weren't MitM the first time you connected, you can't be MitM later without seeing a new warning - exact same thing you get when connecting to a SSH server.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

gevaerts — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 10:33:38 +0000

The GPL still says "You are not required to accept this License in order to receive or run a copy of the Program" (v3 wording, v2 has a similar line)", so I don't think it's clear at all that an extra EULA pointing you to the GPL isn't an additional restriction.

Rockstor — A Btrfs-based NAS distribution

johannbg — Wed, 14 Jan 2015 06:32:08 +0000

Easynas next?