Oracle is the license steward for CDDL, they have the right to release CDDL-2.0 and make it GPL-compatible which users would then be allowed to chose to use. Mozilla did the same thing with MPL-2.0 (CDDL was based on MPL-1.0), though the details are a little more complicated.

Unlike the GPL, the CDDL (and MPL) has an opt-out upgrade clause and all of OpenSolaris (or more accurately, almosf all software under the CDDL) can be upgraded to "CDDL-1.1 OR CDDL-2.0" unilaterally by Oracle even if they do not own the copyrights. See section 4 of the CDDL.

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p_l 2 days ago | parent [-]

0) Assuming Oracle actually retains the stewardship of license:

1) Making CDDL compatible with GPLv2 puts everyone using CDDL code at mercy of Oracle patents

2) OpenZFS is actually not required to upgrade, and the team has indicated they won't. So you end up with a fork you need to carry yourself. Might even force OpenZFS to ensure that it's specifically 1.0.

Ultimately it means Oracle can't do much with this.

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cyphar 2 days ago | parent [-]

0) They do.

1) They could just adapt MPL-2.0, which provides GPLv2+ compatibility while still providing the same patent grants.

2) The upgrade is chosen by downstream users. The OpenZFS project could ask individual contributiors to choose to license their future contributions differently but that will only affect future versions and isn't a single decision made by the project leads. I don't know in what context that discussion was in but given that the have not already opted-out of future CDDL versions kind of indicates that they can imagine future CDDL versions they would choose to upgrade to.

Also, OpenZFS is under CDDL-1.1 not 1.0.

	▲	pabs3 a day ago \| parent [-]
		IIRC from LWN discussions, some of the newer OpenZFS code is now CDDL-1-only and could not be upgraded to CDDL-2.0 without explicit agreement from the owners of the new code.