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> Sadly the licensing issues scared Apple off from adopting ZFS. It was not licensing. ZFS is licensed the exact same way as Dtrace, and Dtrace is part of Mac

> Sadly the licensing issues scared Apple off from adopting ZFS. It was not licensing. ZFS is licensed the exact same way as Dtrace, and Dtrace is part of Mac OS / macOS. It was signing a 'support' contract with Sun: terms couldn't be agreed to. From Jeff Bonwick (co-creator of ZFS) on the zfs-users list at the time: > Apple can currently just take the ZFS CDDL code and incorporate it > (like they did with DTrace), but it may be that they wanted a "private > license" from Sun (with appropriate technical support and > indemnification), and the two entities couldn't come to mutually > agreeable terms. I cannot disclose details, but that is the essence of it. * https://web.archive.org/web/20121221111757/http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/2009-October/033125.html https://web.archive.org/web/20121221111757/http://mail.opens...

jedberg 5y ago
It says it right there -- they wanted a "private license" which Sun could/would not give them.
- justinjlynn 5y ago
  Sadly, it's typical of Apple to want special treatment from vendors. In a way, I'm sad that we didn't get a MacOS based on ZFS. That would've been nice.
  - Affric 5y ago
    If you read further in the thread it's hinted at that Apple mainly wanted indemnification from legal action and the Net App saga was ongoing at the time. Considering that Apple would be rolling it out to many users through high margin computers this is a reasonable concern.
  - mdaniel 5y ago
    I've used OpenZFS on OSX (https://github.com/openzfsonosx/openzfs#readme https://github.com/openzfsonosx/openzfs#readme) and it's been better to me for cross-os drive sharing than NTFS or UFS, despite their warnings about using it on USB devices I hear you about a ZFS root partition, though
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    How ironic they are now the largest manufacturer of Unix workstations...
  - sgjohnson 5y ago
    I much prefer APFS over ZFS. The sad thing is that they didn’t open-source APFS. They could have done that at 0 cost and scored a lot of awesomeness points.
    - vladvasiliu 5y ago
      Why? I've used APFS on my Mac, and it worked well enough that I didn't have to think about. Now I've been using ZFS on my daily driver Linux PC and I don't have to think about it either. I actually prefer ZFS for being able to set up transparent compression. But other than that, I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > Sadly, it's typical of Apple to want special treatment from vendors. If you're going to put a third-party's technology into your products (i.e., the file system that everything is built on), having extra assurances with regards to support and development is not crazy. Apple tends to buy companies that make the technology they based their products on, but wasn't really going to happen with Sun. At best they'd have to poach the entire ZFS team, but there could still be things like patents and such (which they're allowed to use via the CDDL). Yes, they incorporated Dtrace, but that wouldn't be a big deal to rip out if things went sideways legally-speaking. Changing and depending on a file system is a BFD.
- josephg 5y ago
  It probably would have happened, and my understanding (from contacts at Apple) is that they had macos working on top of zfs internally and were gearing up to launch it. Then Oracle bought Sun, and thats when everything fell apart. Presumably Apple deemed it too much of a legal risk to use zfs even with the CDDL, because of how litigious Oracle is.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > Presumably Apple deemed it too much of a legal risk to use zfs even with the CDDL, because of how litigious Oracle is. Kind of surprising given how close Ellison and Jobs were: Steve was the 'official' photographer at Larry's wedding. * https://petapixel.com/2010/10/08/steve-jobs-the-wedding-photographer/ https://petapixel.com/2010/10/08/steve-jobs-the-wedding-phot...
cryptonector 5y ago
I believe they wanted indemnification from any negative outcomes of the NetApp trial, and Sun wouldn't give it. Or at least I remember seeing a lot of speculation about that.

jedberg 5y ago

It says it right there -- they wanted a "private license" which Sun could/would not give them.

justinjlynn 5y ago
Sadly, it's typical of Apple to want special treatment from vendors. In a way, I'm sad that we didn't get a MacOS based on ZFS. That would've been nice.
- Affric 5y ago
  If you read further in the thread it's hinted at that Apple mainly wanted indemnification from legal action and the Net App saga was ongoing at the time. Considering that Apple would be rolling it out to many users through high margin computers this is a reasonable concern.
- mdaniel 5y ago
  I've used OpenZFS on OSX (https://github.com/openzfsonosx/openzfs#readme https://github.com/openzfsonosx/openzfs#readme) and it's been better to me for cross-os drive sharing than NTFS or UFS, despite their warnings about using it on USB devices I hear you about a ZFS root partition, though
- rbanffy 5y ago
  How ironic they are now the largest manufacturer of Unix workstations...
- sgjohnson 5y ago
  I much prefer APFS over ZFS. The sad thing is that they didn’t open-source APFS. They could have done that at 0 cost and scored a lot of awesomeness points.
  - vladvasiliu 5y ago
    Why? I've used APFS on my Mac, and it worked well enough that I didn't have to think about. Now I've been using ZFS on my daily driver Linux PC and I don't have to think about it either. I actually prefer ZFS for being able to set up transparent compression. But other than that, I'd be hard-pressed to pick a favorite.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Sadly, it's typical of Apple to want special treatment from vendors. If you're going to put a third-party's technology into your products (i.e., the file system that everything is built on), having extra assurances with regards to support and development is not crazy. Apple tends to buy companies that make the technology they based their products on, but wasn't really going to happen with Sun. At best they'd have to poach the entire ZFS team, but there could still be things like patents and such (which they're allowed to use via the CDDL). Yes, they incorporated Dtrace, but that wouldn't be a big deal to rip out if things went sideways legally-speaking. Changing and depending on a file system is a BFD.
josephg 5y ago
It probably would have happened, and my understanding (from contacts at Apple) is that they had macos working on top of zfs internally and were gearing up to launch it. Then Oracle bought Sun, and thats when everything fell apart. Presumably Apple deemed it too much of a legal risk to use zfs even with the CDDL, because of how litigious Oracle is.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > Presumably Apple deemed it too much of a legal risk to use zfs even with the CDDL, because of how litigious Oracle is. Kind of surprising given how close Ellison and Jobs were: Steve was the 'official' photographer at Larry's wedding. * https://petapixel.com/2010/10/08/steve-jobs-the-wedding-photographer/ https://petapixel.com/2010/10/08/steve-jobs-the-wedding-phot...

cryptonector 5y ago

I believe they wanted indemnification from any negative outcomes of the NetApp trial, and Sun wouldn't give it. Or at least I remember seeing a lot of speculation about that.