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That's called marketing. Give it a snazzy name, like say "TimeMachine" and users will jump on it. Also, ZFS has a bad name within the Linux community due to so

That's called marketing. Give it a snazzy name, like say "TimeMachine" and users will jump on it. Also, ZFS has a bad name within the Linux community due to some licensing stuff. I find that most BSD users don't really care about such legalese and most people I know that run FreeBSD are running ZFS on root. Which works amazingly well I might add. Especially with something like sanoid added to it, it basically does the same as timemachine on mac, a feature that users love. Albeit stored on the same drive (but with syncoid or just manually rolled zfs send/recv scripts you can do that on another location too).

cherryteastain 2y ago
> ZFS has a bad name within the Linux community due to some licensing stuff This is out of an abundance of caution. Canonical bundle ZFS in the Ubuntu kernel and no one sued them (yet).
- wkat4242 2y ago
  True and I understand the caution considering Oracle is involved which are an awful company to do deal with (and their takeover of Sun was a disaster). But really, this is a concern for distros. Not for end users. Yet many of the Linux users I speak to are somehow worried about this. Most can't even describe the provisions of the GPL so I don't really know what that's about. Just something they picked up, I guess.
  - thyristan 2y ago
    Licensing concerns that prevent distros from using ZFS will sooner or later also have adverse effects on end users. Actually those effects are already there: The constant need to adapt a large patchset to the current kernel, meaning updates are a hassle. The lack of packaging in distributions, meaning updates are a hassle. And the lack of integration and related tooling, meaning many features can not be used (like a/b boots from snapshots after updates) easily, and installers won't know about ZFS so you have to install manually. None of this is a worry about being sued as an end user. But all of those are worries that you life will be harder with ZFS, and a lot harder as soon as the first lawsuits hit anyone, because all the current (small) efforts to keep it working will cease immediately.
    - ryao 2y ago
      Unlike other out of tree filesystems such as Reiser4, the ZFS driver does not patch the kernel sources.
      - thyristan 2y ago
        That is due to licensing reasons, yes. It makes maintaining the codebase even more complicated because when the kernel module API changes (which it very frequently does) you cannot just adapt it to your needs, you have to work around all the new changes that are there in the new version.
        ryao 2y ago
        You have things backward. Licensing has nothing to do with it. Changes to the kernel are unnecessary. Maintaining the code base is also simplified by supporting the various kernel versions the way that they are currently supported.
yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
> I find that most BSD users don't really care about such legalese and most people I know that run FreeBSD are running ZFS on root. I don't think it's that they don't care, it's that the CDDL and BSD-ish licenses are generally believed to just not have the conflict that CDDL and GPL might. (IANAL, make your own conclusions about whether either of those are true)
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Hmm yeah but that's the thing, who really cares about licenses as a user? I certainly don't. It's just some stuff that some lawyers fuss over. I don't read EULAs either nor would I even consider obeying them. The whole civil-legal world is just something I ignore. I do have a feeling that Linux users in general care more about the GPL which is quite specific of course. Though I wonder if anyone chooses Linux for that reason. But really personally I don't care whether companies give anything back, if anything I would love less corporate involvement in the OS I use. It was one of my main reasons for picking BSD. The others were a less fragmented ecosystem and less push to change things constantly.
  - UltraSane 2y ago
    I feel the same way. The way people talk about how ZFS is incompatible with Linux feels like debates over religious doctrine.
gruturo 2y ago
>I find that most BSD users don't really care about such legalese and most people I know that run FreeBSD are running ZFS on root. What a weird take. BSD's license is compatible with ZFS, that's why. "Don't really care?" Really? Come on.
- worthless-trash 2y ago
  There is an increase of posts with casual confidence in their own absolute correctnes. I originally attributed it to the influence of llms, but it is becoming so common now it is hard to dismiss.
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    I never claimed absolute correctness, just stating what I see with the other BSD users I know.
    - worthless-trash 2y ago
      You did say that a most linux admins dont really care.. which has been edited out now.
      - wkat4242 2y ago
        Huh no I never spoke of Linux users
        worthless-trash 2y ago
        Did i respond to the wrong thread then? I'm pretty sure there was context around "linux users dont really seem to care about zfs licencing". Are you saying you didnt edit the post ?
- wkat4242 2y ago
  I just mean that GPL is a bit of a religion. There are very strong opinions and principles behind it. Whereas the BSD license is more like "do whatever you want". It makes sense that the followers of the former care more deeply about it, right? Personally I don't care about or obey any software licenses, as a user. But this is kinda the vibe I get from other BSD users if a license discussion comes up. Maybe it's my bubble, that's possible.
badc0ffee 2y ago
Time Machine was released 17 years ago, and I wish Windows had anything that good. And they're on their 3rd backup system since then.
- mdaniel 2y ago
  > I wish Windows had anything that good I can't readily tell how much of the dumbness is from the filesystem and how much from the kernel but the end result is that until it gets away from 1980s version of file locking there's no prayer. Imagine having to explain to your boss that your .docx wasn't backed up because you left Word open over the weekend. A just catastrophically idiotic design
  - wkat4242 2y ago
    Ah but this is really not true. Volume shadow copy makes snapshots of files and through that it can make a backup of an entire NTFS including files with a lock on them and fully quiesced. It was invented for that exact purpose. Backup software on windows leverages this functionality well. It took much longer for Linux to have something similar. I have many criticisms of NTFS like it being really bad at handling large volumes of small files. But this is something it can do well. The lock prevents other people from copying the file or opening it even in read only, yes. But backup software can back it up just fine.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Windows has a really good basis for it though, in volume shadow copy. I also don't understand why Microsoft never built a time machine based on that. Well, they kinda did but only on samba shares. But not locally. But these days they want you to subscribe to their cloud storage so the versioning is done there, which makes sense in their commercial point of view. I think snapshots on ZFS are better than time machine though. Time machine is a bit of a clunky mess of soft links that can really go to shit on a minor corruption. Leaving you with an unrestorable backup and just some vague error messages. I worked a lot with macs and I've had my share of bad backups when trying to fix people's problems. I've not seen ZFS fail like that. It's really solid and tends to indicate issues before they lead to bigger problems.

cherryteastain 2y ago

> ZFS has a bad name within the Linux community due to some licensing stuff This is out of an abundance of caution. Canonical bundle ZFS in the Ubuntu kernel and no one sued them (yet).

wkat4242 2y ago
True and I understand the caution considering Oracle is involved which are an awful company to do deal with (and their takeover of Sun was a disaster). But really, this is a concern for distros. Not for end users. Yet many of the Linux users I speak to are somehow worried about this. Most can't even describe the provisions of the GPL so I don't really know what that's about. Just something they picked up, I guess.
- thyristan 2y ago
  Licensing concerns that prevent distros from using ZFS will sooner or later also have adverse effects on end users. Actually those effects are already there: The constant need to adapt a large patchset to the current kernel, meaning updates are a hassle. The lack of packaging in distributions, meaning updates are a hassle. And the lack of integration and related tooling, meaning many features can not be used (like a/b boots from snapshots after updates) easily, and installers won't know about ZFS so you have to install manually. None of this is a worry about being sued as an end user. But all of those are worries that you life will be harder with ZFS, and a lot harder as soon as the first lawsuits hit anyone, because all the current (small) efforts to keep it working will cease immediately.
  - ryao 2y ago
    Unlike other out of tree filesystems such as Reiser4, the ZFS driver does not patch the kernel sources.
    - thyristan 2y ago
      That is due to licensing reasons, yes. It makes maintaining the codebase even more complicated because when the kernel module API changes (which it very frequently does) you cannot just adapt it to your needs, you have to work around all the new changes that are there in the new version.
      - ryao 2y ago
        You have things backward. Licensing has nothing to do with it. Changes to the kernel are unnecessary. Maintaining the code base is also simplified by supporting the various kernel versions the way that they are currently supported.

yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago

> I find that most BSD users don't really care about such legalese and most people I know that run FreeBSD are running ZFS on root. I don't think it's that they don't care, it's that the CDDL and BSD-ish licenses are generally believed to just not have the conflict that CDDL and GPL might. (IANAL, make your own conclusions about whether either of those are true)

wkat4242 2y ago
Hmm yeah but that's the thing, who really cares about licenses as a user? I certainly don't. It's just some stuff that some lawyers fuss over. I don't read EULAs either nor would I even consider obeying them. The whole civil-legal world is just something I ignore. I do have a feeling that Linux users in general care more about the GPL which is quite specific of course. Though I wonder if anyone chooses Linux for that reason. But really personally I don't care whether companies give anything back, if anything I would love less corporate involvement in the OS I use. It was one of my main reasons for picking BSD. The others were a less fragmented ecosystem and less push to change things constantly.
- UltraSane 2y ago
  I feel the same way. The way people talk about how ZFS is incompatible with Linux feels like debates over religious doctrine.

gruturo 2y ago

>I find that most BSD users don't really care about such legalese and most people I know that run FreeBSD are running ZFS on root. What a weird take. BSD's license is compatible with ZFS, that's why. "Don't really care?" Really? Come on.

worthless-trash 2y ago
There is an increase of posts with casual confidence in their own absolute correctnes. I originally attributed it to the influence of llms, but it is becoming so common now it is hard to dismiss.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  I never claimed absolute correctness, just stating what I see with the other BSD users I know.
  - worthless-trash 2y ago
    You did say that a most linux admins dont really care.. which has been edited out now.
    - wkat4242 2y ago
      Huh no I never spoke of Linux users
      - worthless-trash 2y ago
        Did i respond to the wrong thread then? I'm pretty sure there was context around "linux users dont really seem to care about zfs licencing". Are you saying you didnt edit the post ?
wkat4242 2y ago
I just mean that GPL is a bit of a religion. There are very strong opinions and principles behind it. Whereas the BSD license is more like "do whatever you want". It makes sense that the followers of the former care more deeply about it, right? Personally I don't care about or obey any software licenses, as a user. But this is kinda the vibe I get from other BSD users if a license discussion comes up. Maybe it's my bubble, that's possible.

badc0ffee 2y ago

Time Machine was released 17 years ago, and I wish Windows had anything that good. And they're on their 3rd backup system since then.

mdaniel 2y ago
> I wish Windows had anything that good I can't readily tell how much of the dumbness is from the filesystem and how much from the kernel but the end result is that until it gets away from 1980s version of file locking there's no prayer. Imagine having to explain to your boss that your .docx wasn't backed up because you left Word open over the weekend. A just catastrophically idiotic design
- wkat4242 2y ago
  Ah but this is really not true. Volume shadow copy makes snapshots of files and through that it can make a backup of an entire NTFS including files with a lock on them and fully quiesced. It was invented for that exact purpose. Backup software on windows leverages this functionality well. It took much longer for Linux to have something similar. I have many criticisms of NTFS like it being really bad at handling large volumes of small files. But this is something it can do well. The lock prevents other people from copying the file or opening it even in read only, yes. But backup software can back it up just fine.
wkat4242 2y ago
Windows has a really good basis for it though, in volume shadow copy. I also don't understand why Microsoft never built a time machine based on that. Well, they kinda did but only on samba shares. But not locally. But these days they want you to subscribe to their cloud storage so the versioning is done there, which makes sense in their commercial point of view. I think snapshots on ZFS are better than time machine though. Time machine is a bit of a clunky mess of soft links that can really go to shit on a minor corruption. Leaving you with an unrestorable backup and just some vague error messages. I worked a lot with macs and I've had my share of bad backups when trying to fix people's problems. I've not seen ZFS fail like that. It's really solid and tends to indicate issues before they lead to bigger problems.