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No way. NetApp will rabidly chase and kill whoever dares trying building commercial ZFS applications based upon OpenSolaris or *BSD (CDDL doesn't cover you agai

by wazoox 16y ago

No way. NetApp will rabidly chase and kill whoever dares trying building commercial ZFS applications based upon OpenSolaris or *BSD (CDDL doesn't cover you against patents infringements, remember?). I know a well-known privately-held extremely-high-end storage company who just canned its OpenSolaris/ZFS projects because they won't take the risk to be sued by NetApp. ZFS as open-source is cold dead. Sad, but true.

lsc 16y ago
I've read about NetApp /filing/ the lawsuits, but I haven't read about any results... Until it's over, it's just scary paper. have any of the lawsuits gone to court?
- nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
  Building a business around the hopes that pending litigation will be dropped doesn't sound like a very solid plan...
  - lsc 16y ago
    Yes, I'd certainly think twice about starting a company in that market right now. but my point is that to my knowledge, it's not over just yet for the companies that got sued... people keep talking like they are dead, and yeah, their future is in question, but "cold dead" ---? my understanding is that as of this moment, this is not true.
deleted 16y ago
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ghshephard 16y ago
The only exposure that ZFS has is Patent Based. Some of the interesting ones are expiring in the next four to five years: http://www.google.com/patents?as_q&num=10&btnG=Google%20Search&as_epq&as_oq&as_eq&as_pnum&as_vt&as_pinvent&as_pasgnee=%22Network%20Appliance%22&scoring=2 http://www.google.com/patents?as_q&num=10&btnG=Googl... They'll all expire eventually. ZFS (like) file systems will eventually be very succesful.
- wazoox 16y ago
  > They'll all expire eventually. ZFS (like) file systems will eventually be very succesful. Yes, that's all in the "like". In 4 or 5 years, btrfs and others will mature and ZFS will look less exceptional. That, and ZFS has a major culprit which will become more annoying with time : it's not cluster-aware.

by wazoox 16y ago

lsc 16y ago

I've read about NetApp /filing/ the lawsuits, but I haven't read about any results... Until it's over, it's just scary paper. have any of the lawsuits gone to court?

nuclear_eclipse 16y ago
Building a business around the hopes that pending litigation will be dropped doesn't sound like a very solid plan...
- lsc 16y ago
  Yes, I'd certainly think twice about starting a company in that market right now. but my point is that to my knowledge, it's not over just yet for the companies that got sued... people keep talking like they are dead, and yeah, their future is in question, but "cold dead" ---? my understanding is that as of this moment, this is not true.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

ghshephard 16y ago

The only exposure that ZFS has is Patent Based. Some of the interesting ones are expiring in the next four to five years: http://www.google.com/patents?as_q&num=10&btnG=Google%20Search&as_epq&as_oq&as_eq&as_pnum&as_vt&as_pinvent&as_pasgnee=%22Network%20Appliance%22&scoring=2 http://www.google.com/patents?as_q&num=10&btnG=Googl... They'll all expire eventually. ZFS (like) file systems will eventually be very succesful.

wazoox 16y ago
> They'll all expire eventually. ZFS (like) file systems will eventually be very succesful. Yes, that's all in the "like". In 4 or 5 years, btrfs and others will mature and ZFS will look less exceptional. That, and ZFS has a major culprit which will become more annoying with time : it's not cluster-aware.