DESCRIPTION: The license conflict between the open source ZFS and open source Linux kernel mean ZFS needs to be in contrib. Unlike a lot of other packages in contrib, ZFS doesn't rely on any non-free software. It just can't be in Debian main because of the conflict of licenses.
However, it would be nice if there was a way to have a more official path to ZFS on root for Debian. The current instructions require a fairly high number of steps in the ZFS On Linux wiki.
The ZFS On Linux wiki also lists a new initramfs file that has to be included so ZFS is supported. It seems odd that Debian couldn't include that as part of initramfs. I realize Debian doesn't want to necessarily promote non-free software, but this is free software that just conflicts with the GPL. It doesn't seem like it should be a second class citizen where you have to manually include files that should already be part of the package.
By the nature of the license conflict, it will be a second class citizen in that it can't be part of the normal installation package and you'll have to compile on the fly. However, it would be nice if there was a mode in the Live CD that could handle ZFS installation rather than doing it all manually.
DISTRIBUTION: currently mixture of testing/unstable but I'd like to use day(s) old sid (see other post).