6 ms·

Apple Pulls the Plug Completely on ZFS

103 points by durin42 17y ago

c00p3r 17y ago
Seems like this decision came from Oracle. Switch to freebsd. =)
durin42 17y ago
There's a Google Group [0] and a github repo [1] for those interested in keeping going with the last code drop from Apple. [0] https://groups.google.com/group/zfs-macos https://groups.google.com/group/zfs-macos [1] http://github.com/peaceful/zfs-mac http://github.com/peaceful/zfs-mac
- dlsspy 17y ago
  I ported it and have an installer for Snow Leopard: http://dustin.github.com/2009/10/23/mac-zfs.html http://dustin.github.com/2009/10/23/mac-zfs.html
pclark 17y ago
why?
- wmf 17y ago
  This is Apple we're talking about. The world may never know.
- samg 17y ago
  Looks like it was a legal issue: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs
  - thehigherlife 17y ago
    That's too bad if so. ZFS is pretty cool technology (i've been pretty impressed with it so far for my personal use). I was really hoping it was going to be added at some point to OSX. Hopefully apple's in house implementation will fix a lot of the same issues ZFS was aiming at.
  - msie 17y ago
    Ah yes, patents - the enemy of progress.
    - protomyth 17y ago
      I'm all for hardware patents (they seem to get licensed and used), but these software ones have to go.
      - randallsquared 17y ago
        The Firewire patent(s) arguably killed Firewire, in an analogous way to software patents.
        adamc 17y ago
        I think you mean the license fees killed Firewire. Apple got greedy and lost.
        wmf 17y ago
        It's the same thing. The purpose of the Firewire patents was to collect licensing fees.
bprater 17y ago
Well, that's fairly disappointing. I've been excitedly watching for it to make it into the operating system. I think it would be a positive but subtle shake-up for the industry.
jbyers 17y ago
Five years on and ZFS still remains just out of reach. I'm not a likely user on OS X (anyone got a good use case for laptop use?) but other filesystem + volume management solutions on Linux never seem to match up.
- lallysingh 17y ago
  Very good sleep, hibernate, and wakeup behavior.
- cookiecaper 17y ago
  Here's hoping btrfs keeps it real.
  - jeduan 17y ago
    Don't know, Gruber mentions something about ZFS being now related to Oracle as a bad thing, and the ties of btrfs and Oracle may do this another no-go from legal
    - whopa 17y ago
      btrfs is GPL, which is an automatic no-go for Apple legal. I'm curious, where does the Apple/Oracle bad blood speculation come from? I don't remember seeing any references to it before, so was Gruber just grasping at things? The NetApp lawsuit seems way more plausible.
      - jws 17y ago
        If Apple wants it then, btrfs' license is irrelevant to Apple as long as there isn't patent encumbrance. Apple can dispatch a team of flying monkeys to clone a btrfs implementation under whatever license they choose. wc linuc-2.6.31/fs/btrfs/*.[hc] says 50k lines of text. Call it 20 flying monkey years of coding.
      - tesseract 17y ago
        Much of the lower levels of Mac OS X (including the compiler, which at the moment is gcc, although Apple is moving toward LLVM/clang...) is GPL. CUPS, which is now managed and primarily maintained by Apple, is GPL.
dylanz 17y ago
Damn, was looking forward to ZFS. Are they working on an alternative?
- bbb 17y ago
  According to Gruber, yes. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs Here's your chance in building the better alternative. ;-) http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?method=mExternal.showJob&RID=42559 http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?method=mExternal.showJob&#38...
  - wmf 17y ago
    Unfortunately, if Apple dropped ZFS because of the NetApp lawsuit that means their homegrown next-gen filesystem will probably avoid many of the efficient-yet-patented techniques found in ZFS.
    - protomyth 17y ago
      They could license the patents. NetApp has a 9.6B market cap, so it would not be an easy takeover target.
      - martingordon 17y ago
        Except that Apple has $30B+ in cash. Still, Apple could roll their own for much less than the $9.6B NetApp is worth.
        pbhjpbhj 17y ago
        How much could they roll their own for, few hundred thousand? Depends on timescale and starting point I suppose. But let's call it $1Million USD. That surely puts an upper bound on licensing the tech needed from NetApp to continue with ZFS. Perhaps they just think ZFS sucks?
        17y ago
pinko 17y ago
Noooooooooooo.

103 points by durin42 17y ago

Seems like this decision came from Oracle. Switch to freebsd. =)

There's a Google Group [0] and a github repo [1] for those interested in keeping going with the last code drop from Apple. [0] https://groups.google.com/group/zfs-macos https://groups.google.com/group/zfs-macos [1] http://github.com/peaceful/zfs-mac http://github.com/peaceful/zfs-mac

dlsspy 17y ago
I ported it and have an installer for Snow Leopard: http://dustin.github.com/2009/10/23/mac-zfs.html http://dustin.github.com/2009/10/23/mac-zfs.html

pclark 17y ago

why?

wmf 17y ago
This is Apple we're talking about. The world may never know.
samg 17y ago
Looks like it was a legal issue: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs
- thehigherlife 17y ago
  That's too bad if so. ZFS is pretty cool technology (i've been pretty impressed with it so far for my personal use). I was really hoping it was going to be added at some point to OSX. Hopefully apple's in house implementation will fix a lot of the same issues ZFS was aiming at.
- msie 17y ago
  Ah yes, patents - the enemy of progress.
  - protomyth 17y ago
    I'm all for hardware patents (they seem to get licensed and used), but these software ones have to go.
    - randallsquared 17y ago
      The Firewire patent(s) arguably killed Firewire, in an analogous way to software patents.
      - adamc 17y ago
        I think you mean the license fees killed Firewire. Apple got greedy and lost.
        wmf 17y ago
        It's the same thing. The purpose of the Firewire patents was to collect licensing fees.

bprater 17y ago

Well, that's fairly disappointing. I've been excitedly watching for it to make it into the operating system. I think it would be a positive but subtle shake-up for the industry.

jbyers 17y ago

Five years on and ZFS still remains just out of reach. I'm not a likely user on OS X (anyone got a good use case for laptop use?) but other filesystem + volume management solutions on Linux never seem to match up.

lallysingh 17y ago
Very good sleep, hibernate, and wakeup behavior.
cookiecaper 17y ago
Here's hoping btrfs keeps it real.
- jeduan 17y ago
  Don't know, Gruber mentions something about ZFS being now related to Oracle as a bad thing, and the ties of btrfs and Oracle may do this another no-go from legal
  - whopa 17y ago
    btrfs is GPL, which is an automatic no-go for Apple legal. I'm curious, where does the Apple/Oracle bad blood speculation come from? I don't remember seeing any references to it before, so was Gruber just grasping at things? The NetApp lawsuit seems way more plausible.
    - jws 17y ago
      If Apple wants it then, btrfs' license is irrelevant to Apple as long as there isn't patent encumbrance. Apple can dispatch a team of flying monkeys to clone a btrfs implementation under whatever license they choose. wc linuc-2.6.31/fs/btrfs/*.[hc] says 50k lines of text. Call it 20 flying monkey years of coding.
    - tesseract 17y ago
      Much of the lower levels of Mac OS X (including the compiler, which at the moment is gcc, although Apple is moving toward LLVM/clang...) is GPL. CUPS, which is now managed and primarily maintained by Apple, is GPL.

dylanz 17y ago

Damn, was looking forward to ZFS. Are they working on an alternative?

bbb 17y ago
According to Gruber, yes. http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/10/23/zfs Here's your chance in building the better alternative. ;-) http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?method=mExternal.showJob&RID=42559 http://jobs.apple.com/index.ajs?method=mExternal.showJob&#38...
- wmf 17y ago
  Unfortunately, if Apple dropped ZFS because of the NetApp lawsuit that means their homegrown next-gen filesystem will probably avoid many of the efficient-yet-patented techniques found in ZFS.
  - protomyth 17y ago
    They could license the patents. NetApp has a 9.6B market cap, so it would not be an easy takeover target.
    - martingordon 17y ago
      Except that Apple has $30B+ in cash. Still, Apple could roll their own for much less than the $9.6B NetApp is worth.
      - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
        How much could they roll their own for, few hundred thousand? Depends on timescale and starting point I suppose. But let's call it $1Million USD. That surely puts an upper bound on licensing the tech needed from NetApp to continue with ZFS. Perhaps they just think ZFS sucks?
        17y ago

pinko 17y ago

Noooooooooooo.