3 ms·

Apple should replace the abomination that is HFS+. They almost did a few years ago, but pulled the code at the last moment.

by melted 11y ago

beagle3 11y ago
Dragonfly BSD's HAMMER2, when it is even half done (that is, stable for one node), is probably a much better (technical) choice than BTRFS or improving HFS+, and probably a much better legal choice than ZFS.
e1ven 11y ago
Apple's choice to drop ZFS may have been influenced by the lawsuit Sun was dealing with at the time. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2539287/data-center/apple-s-support-for-zfs-may-drag-it-into-open-source-lawsuit.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2539287/data-center/app... I'd wager they wouldn't want to adopt ZFS without an explicit license and legal indemnity from Oracle.
- ryao 11y ago
  I heard from a former Sun executive that Apple wanted indemnification following netapp's lawsuit. They had spent a long time negotiating over that before they had something mutually acceptable and it was supposed to be signed the day Oracle's acquisition of Sun finished. That left it up to Larry Elison, who refused to sign it and Apple decided to try its luck improving HFS+.
- zanny 11y ago
  They could adopt btrfs. Darwin is open source, right?
  - melted 11y ago
    BTRFS is still not mature, and there's a license incompatibility as well. And it's controlled by Oracle all the same. If Apple replaces the filesystem they'll likely roll their own.
    - zanny 11y ago
      btrfs is not controlled by Oracle for one (its principal developers are employed by Facebook, but its still regular Linux GPLv2 code) but I did check and the APL is incompatible with the GPL. And they obviously aren't going to make a new filesystem. That doesn't get them sales like higher resolution screens or changing the color theme... again.
      - melted 11y ago
        Looks like you're right. Oracle used to control it (as evidenced by (c) Oracle all over the place), but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
        ghaff 11y ago
        I'm not sure it's accurate to say it was "controlled" by Oracle but a lot of--though certainly not all--active development came out of Oracle at one point, notably by Chris Mason (who is now with Facebook).
        melted 11y ago
        Whoever employs the core team, controls the project. For a while that was Oracle.
      - ghaff 11y ago
        And they obviously aren't going to make a new filesystem. That doesn't get them sales like higher resolution screens or changing the color theme... again. Introducing a new filesystem would be a big decision for Apple. There would doubtless be all sorts of migration and compatibility issue, even aside from the work it would take. Especially given where we are in the maturity of desktop clients, it makes a lot more sense to incrementally improve the current filesystem. I'm not sure how snarky you intended to be, but no there aren't many sales in a complex undertaking that is far more likely to cause data corruption and migration issues than concrete benefits for 99.9% of users.

Apple should replace the abomination that is HFS+. They almost did a few years ago, but pulled the code at the last moment.

by melted 11y ago

Apple should replace the abomination that is HFS+. They almost did a few years ago, but pulled the code at the last moment.

beagle3 11y ago

Dragonfly BSD's HAMMER2, when it is even half done (that is, stable for one node), is probably a much better (technical) choice than BTRFS or improving HFS+, and probably a much better legal choice than ZFS.

e1ven 11y ago

Apple's choice to drop ZFS may have been influenced by the lawsuit Sun was dealing with at the time. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2539287/data-center/apple-s-support-for-zfs-may-drag-it-into-open-source-lawsuit.html http://www.computerworld.com/article/2539287/data-center/app... I'd wager they wouldn't want to adopt ZFS without an explicit license and legal indemnity from Oracle.

ryao 11y ago
I heard from a former Sun executive that Apple wanted indemnification following netapp's lawsuit. They had spent a long time negotiating over that before they had something mutually acceptable and it was supposed to be signed the day Oracle's acquisition of Sun finished. That left it up to Larry Elison, who refused to sign it and Apple decided to try its luck improving HFS+.
zanny 11y ago
They could adopt btrfs. Darwin is open source, right?
- melted 11y ago
  BTRFS is still not mature, and there's a license incompatibility as well. And it's controlled by Oracle all the same. If Apple replaces the filesystem they'll likely roll their own.
  - zanny 11y ago
    btrfs is not controlled by Oracle for one (its principal developers are employed by Facebook, but its still regular Linux GPLv2 code) but I did check and the APL is incompatible with the GPL. And they obviously aren't going to make a new filesystem. That doesn't get them sales like higher resolution screens or changing the color theme... again.
    - melted 11y ago
      Looks like you're right. Oracle used to control it (as evidenced by (c) Oracle all over the place), but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.
      - ghaff 11y ago
        I'm not sure it's accurate to say it was "controlled" by Oracle but a lot of--though certainly not all--active development came out of Oracle at one point, notably by Chris Mason (who is now with Facebook).
        melted 11y ago
        Whoever employs the core team, controls the project. For a while that was Oracle.
    - ghaff 11y ago
      And they obviously aren't going to make a new filesystem. That doesn't get them sales like higher resolution screens or changing the color theme... again. Introducing a new filesystem would be a big decision for Apple. There would doubtless be all sorts of migration and compatibility issue, even aside from the work it would take. Especially given where we are in the maturity of desktop clients, it makes a lot more sense to incrementally improve the current filesystem. I'm not sure how snarky you intended to be, but no there aren't many sales in a complex undertaking that is far more likely to cause data corruption and migration issues than concrete benefits for 99.9% of users.