3J Tech News

Canonical Says There Is No ZFS and Linux Licence Incompatibility

2016-02-19T09:49:00.002-05:00

Canonical Says There Is No ZFS and Linux Licence Incompatibility

Company discussed this legal matter before ZFS announcement
Canonical announced that support for the ZFS (Z File System) will be available in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, but a lot of users have been asking about a possible license conflict. Canonical’s Dustin Kirkland explained why that’s not a problem.

ZFS (Z File System) is described as a combination of a volume manager (like LVM) and a filesystem (like ext4, xfs, or btrfs), and it’s licensed under CDDL (Common Development and Distribution License). Don’t worry if you didn’t hear about it. It’s not something that’s commonly used.

On the other hand, Linux is licensed under GPLv2 (GNU General Public License Version 2) and these two licenses are not compatible with each other. You can’t use the code from each one in the same binary, and this is where all the confusion started.

ZFS licensing won’t be a problem
The Ubuntu developers are aware of the issues that have been raised by the community, but they figured out this problem before announcing the official support for ZFS in Ubuntu. Canonical’s Dustin Kirkland explained why there wouldn’t be a conflict.

“Equivalent exceptions have existed for many years, for various other stand alone, self-contained, non-GPL and even proprietary (hi, nvidia.ko) kernel modules. Our conclusion is good for Ubuntu users, good for Linux, and good for all of free and open source software,” said Dustin.

In fact, this very issue is explained and resolved on the official ZFS website. In the Q&A section this apparent conflict is also explained. Developers say that nothing in either license prevents distributing it in the form of a binary module or in the form of source code.

Now the community can rest easy that Canonical and Ubuntu are not getting in hot water for their decision to implement ZFS support.

In any case, the fact that people have been asking about this constantly has been reflected in the answer posted by Dustin Kirkland, who says that they’re not really interested in debating license compatibility and they just want to discuss the technology.

Apple iPhone 5se/6c Could Launch with the A9 CPU as the 6s and 6s Plus

2016-02-19T09:46:00.002-05:00

Apple iPhone 5se/6c Could Launch with the A9 CPU as the 6s and 6s Plus

New 4-inch iPhone report points to hardware specs

Apple is expected to unveil a new 4-inch iPhone sometime next month, but due to the company’s CIA-like secrecy, there’s not a single thing that’s certain about this device except for its screen size.

As far as technical specifications are concerned, there have been quite a lot of rumors, some claiming that the phone could come with the A8 + M8 CPU combo, while others indicated that Apple wanted to go for something more powerful and opted for the A9 + M9 duo.

According to a report by Bloomberg, this latter configuration seems more likely to be installed on the upcoming model and for a good reason. Apple doesn’t want to launch a device that feels slow and outdated because that could significantly impact its sales, so instead of using old CPUs on the 4-inch iPhone, it will actually go for the latest ones in its phone lineup.

iPhone 7 expected later this year
That shouldn’t be a problem anyway given the fact that the iPhone 7 is expected to launch later this year, most likely with an A10 processor, so there’ll be a significant difference between the high-end models and this smaller version.

At the same time, rumor has it that the upcoming iPad Air 3 will come with the A9X chip, the same one that’s available on the iPad Pro and which should offer an important performance boost.

Nothing is confirmed so far though, so we can’t even know for sure what name Apple wants to use for the 4-inch iPhone, as sources point to different monikers at this point. While some claim the company could call it iPhone 5se because of the 4-inch screen, others believe that 6c has more chances to be picked for the same reason as above, as the company wants the device to feel fresh.

The two new devices are likely to launch in mid-March, but Apple is yet to confirm the press event.

How to Fix an iPhone Bricked by Error 53

2016-02-19T09:40:00.000-05:00

How to Fix an iPhone Bricked by Error 53

Apple rolled out update to fix this error

iPhone repairs performed in an unauthorized service center lead to critical damage to the device, as the update to iOS 9 caused them to get stuck with Error 53 beyond the point where a user can actually fix it at home.
Apple initially said the error was caused by the use of unauthorized parts in an iPhone, and by modifications made to the Touch ID sensor in particular, but in a new statement released recently, the company actually reveals that it was all just a factory test and wasn’t intended to affect customers.

"We apologize for any inconvenience, this was designed to be a factory test and was not intended to affect customers. Customers who paid for an out-of-warranty replacement of their device based on this issue should contact AppleCare about a reimbursement," Apple said in a statement.

And in addition to this statement, the company has also released a new update for devices impacted by Error 53 and running iOS 9.2.1 in order to fix them without the need to bring them in the store or to an Apple service center.

How to fix the bricked iPhone
Apple’s latest software update makes it possible to repair an iPhone bricked by Error 53 with iTunes, so first and foremost, make sure that you have the latest version of the application.

What you need to do next is to force-restart the iPhone by holding the lock and the home buttons pressed for at least ten seconds. When you see the Apple logo, you can let the buttons go.

Since you’re in recovery mode, iTunes should be able to detect that your device is stuck with Error 53 and then offer you the latest update that fixes the issue. A full restore might be needed, so you may actually lose all the contents of an iPhone, including apps, photos, and music.

Apple says that in case you’re still not able to fix the iPhone this way, your only option is to contact Apple Support and bring the device in store to have it fixed by the company’s engineers.