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Comment by SllX | Hacker News Reader

It’s been long enough that I can’t remember if the project was already basically dead or not going anywhere by this point, but whatever the final nail was and whether it was nailed in before or after Sun was bought, Oracle buying Sun would have just completely cremated the project no matter what state it was in.

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I got to speak to a couple different Apple file system engineers many years ago over the course of many WWDCs. I think it was around the Leopard or Snow Leopard time frame (2007-2009), where we casually discussed some of the challenges Apple was having with their ZFS effort.

(We didn't talk about iPhone, so either it had not been announced yet, or development was still so closed down, that it never came up as a topic of consideration.)

My recollection was with their ZFS work, while it was clear to everybody that Time Machine should be a big benefactor of ZFS, they were still unhappy with the high RAM requirements (and also not thrilled about the high CPU requirements). Since laptops were then the bulk of their sales, and these machines shipped with much more constrained specs, there was a lot of uncertainty about when/if they were going to make ZFS the default file system.

(Looking it up, the base 2006 Macbook had 512 MB of RAM, and shared RAM with the Intel GMA 950 GPU.)

I recall there always was a secondary backdrop of concerns with the ZFS license and also the fate of Sun, but the engineers I spoke with weren't involved in those parts of the decision making process.

At some point AFPS was also said to be designed to take advantage of the special characteristics, or reduce wear and tear of, flash NVRAM devices, unlike ZFS which is a design from the spinning rust times, though I couldn't tell how specifically.

> I recall there always was a secondary backdrop of concerns with the ZFS license

From one of the co-creators of ZFS:

    > 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.opens...

* https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2009/10/apple-abandons-zfs-o...

Thats what the engineers say.

What the lawyers say is different.

What the business folks who control the license say was very different. FUD and an unforeseen lawsuit hanging over your head at some random point in the future when Sun or Oracle needs a revenue lift at an end of a quarter is a recipe for ulcers.

> Thats what the engineers say.

Bonwick was the Sun Storage CTO and after the acquisition a vice president at Oracle.

Not unforeseen nor FUD. There was a very real patent lawsuit between NetApp and Sun/Oracle related to ZFS.

https://www.theregister.com/2010/09/09/oracle_netapp_zfs_dis...

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