SFLC: The Linux Kernel, CDDL and Related Issues
The Software Freedom Law Center weighs
in on the ZFS controversy with a long and somewhat academic posting.
The TL;DR is that it depends on what the kernel developers want.
"No existing record conclusively or convincingly demonstrates whether
the only relevant licensing community, the holders of kernel copyright,
intends a literal or equitable interpretation of its license terms under
present circumstances. As so often in the long history of our law, both
literal and equitable postures of interpretation are completely tenable,
and reasonable people in the relevant roles may justifiably disagree. The
matter is smaller than that which divided the Pharisees from the Saducees,
but from a legal theory point of view it is of the same fundamental
kind."