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Let's reinvent the wheel... They could instead have: - made btrfs 'better' so it works for them - made ZFS's legal issues go away and use that - ask apple i

Let's reinvent the wheel... They could instead have: - made btrfs 'better' so it works for them - made ZFS's legal issues go away and use that - ask apple if apfs was ok to use

orf 9y ago
Perhaps they tried all of those? Nothing wrong with innovation, especially for file systems. Plenty wrong with btrfs by the sound if it though.
- jrs95 9y ago
  Maybe none of those will get them to their goal of making the systemd of filesystems ;)
coldtea 9y ago
>- made ZFS's legal issues go away and use that By wishing it intensely?
- tracker1 9y ago
  Assuming they're in a position to work with Oracle to make it happen, it's possible if unlikely.
- greenhouse_gas 9y ago
  I assume money can help. Although I don't understand the following if the issue is copyright or patents: 1. If it's copyright, then presumably a team can black box reversed engineer ZFS, rewriting it under the GPL. 2. If it's patents, then how would any other CoW filesystem (say btrfs) get around them (curious sub point: when would those patents expire)?
  - sanxiyn 9y ago
    It's in part patents. My understanding is that btrfs does not get around them. This is not a vague patent threat, because there was an actual lawsuit with patent numbers spelled out, namely NetApp v. Sun. You can check expiration date of those patents. More here: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/NetApp%27s_filesystem_patents http://en.swpat.org/wiki/NetApp%27s_filesystem_patents
tomovo 9y ago
APFS appears to be very modest in scope compared to ZFS. Designed for single volumes, only a few "interesting" features that play into what Apple needs - quicker backups, flash optimized writes, easy and flexible partitioning. That's about it.
askvictor 9y ago
They're not re-inventing the wheel; they're building on top of xfs and lvm2, making enhancements to both, and tying them into a more unified administrative interface.
rodgerd 9y ago
So: 1/ Fix something that in ten years hadn't been able to deliver stable RAID code and only found out this year their scrub option corrupts data instead of repairing it? Well, that's going to be trivial. 2/ Convince Larry Ellison to give something away to competitors. 3/ Convince Tim Cook to give something away to competitors. Did you have any other ideas? Pull unicorns out of their butts?

Let's reinvent the wheel... They could instead have: - made btrfs 'better' so it works for them - made ZFS's legal issues go away and use that - ask apple if apfs was ok to use

orf 9y ago

Perhaps they tried all of those? Nothing wrong with innovation, especially for file systems. Plenty wrong with btrfs by the sound if it though.

jrs95 9y ago
Maybe none of those will get them to their goal of making the systemd of filesystems ;)

coldtea 9y ago

>- made ZFS's legal issues go away and use that By wishing it intensely?

tracker1 9y ago
Assuming they're in a position to work with Oracle to make it happen, it's possible if unlikely.
greenhouse_gas 9y ago
I assume money can help. Although I don't understand the following if the issue is copyright or patents: 1. If it's copyright, then presumably a team can black box reversed engineer ZFS, rewriting it under the GPL. 2. If it's patents, then how would any other CoW filesystem (say btrfs) get around them (curious sub point: when would those patents expire)?
- sanxiyn 9y ago
  It's in part patents. My understanding is that btrfs does not get around them. This is not a vague patent threat, because there was an actual lawsuit with patent numbers spelled out, namely NetApp v. Sun. You can check expiration date of those patents. More here: http://en.swpat.org/wiki/NetApp%27s_filesystem_patents http://en.swpat.org/wiki/NetApp%27s_filesystem_patents

tomovo 9y ago

APFS appears to be very modest in scope compared to ZFS. Designed for single volumes, only a few "interesting" features that play into what Apple needs - quicker backups, flash optimized writes, easy and flexible partitioning. That's about it.

askvictor 9y ago

They're not re-inventing the wheel; they're building on top of xfs and lvm2, making enhancements to both, and tying them into a more unified administrative interface.

rodgerd 9y ago

So: 1/ Fix something that in ten years hadn't been able to deliver stable RAID code and only found out this year their scrub option corrupts data instead of repairing it? Well, that's going to be trivial. 2/ Convince Larry Ellison to give something away to competitors. 3/ Convince Tim Cook to give something away to competitors. Did you have any other ideas? Pull unicorns out of their butts?