ZFS licensing question

James R. Van Artsdalen james-freebsd-fs2 at jrv.org
Wed Oct 28 20:24:37 UTC 2009


There are lies, damn lies, and Corporate Press Releases.

Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
> The quality of the protection hinges on conditions:
>
> 	1. Sun has to exist and stand by its word.
>
> 	2. Sun must have enough money to do so (see 1.)

phk is exactly right; in my experience it has always been easier to get
a billion dollar's worth of guarantees from a vendor than to get a
million dollar's worth.

Matt Simerson wrote:
> Apple needs a next generation file system, and they need it last year.

No they don't, not unless there was something in last quarter's results
I missed.

The benefit to FreeBSD is clear: ZFS, coupled with the SIIS driver and
SATA port multipliers, will make it possible to build cheap storage
arrays in the 50 TB and above range using FreeBSD.  The other things are
k00l but it's the huge cost savings I'll pitch to clients once the SIIS
driver is finished.

PS. Even when patent litigation is settled it isn't easy to figure out
who "won" until the 10-K's can be analyzed: post-settlement statements
by everyone are often part of the agreement.  That this has something of
a Motorola/Hitachi feel to it is as far as I'd speculate.



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