ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

[Posted March 29, 2013 by corbet]

On behalf of the ZFS-on-Linux project, Brian Behlendorf has announced the availability of version 0.6.1 of this Solaris-derived filesystem. "Over two years of use by real users has convinced us ZoL is ready for wide scale deployment on everything from desktops to super computers." The project's home page offers binary modules for a wide variety of distributions. (See the FAQ for the project's take on licensing issues.)

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Mar 29, 2013 23:12 UTC (Fri) by clump (subscriber, #27801) [Link] (16 responses)

All of the license incompatibility silliness could be solved if Oracle would relicense or dual-license the ZFS source code. Removing such a barrier to wider adoption would greatly expand the available testers and consumers. As this news post shows, there's clearly demand.

I'm thankful for Btrfs, as is Oracle, but don't see the point of keeping ZFS's license deliberately incompatible with Linux.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Mar 30, 2013 12:41 UTC (Sat) by Mithrandir (guest, #3031) [Link] (15 responses)

Seems to me like they might be doing another Java: keep it separate until the community creates a replacement that is as good, then release the code. As if they're trying to damage the FOSS community as much as possible. Oh, wait...

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Mar 30, 2013 14:00 UTC (Sat) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link] (9 responses)

Out of curiosity, what is the community java alternative of which you speak?

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Mar 30, 2013 18:33 UTC (Sat) by jrn (subscriber, #64214) [Link]

GCJ + classpath or kaffe, presumably. Or maybe Mithrandir is thinking of Blackdown (a closed-source port).

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 1, 2013 20:22 UTC (Mon) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (7 responses)

Both Apache Harmony and GNU Classpath were approaching 100% completion when SUN suddenly decided open-sourcing Java was a good idea after all (you still see the traces of this moment in all the distros that ship a gcj-based Java 1.5. Of course it broke many badly written apps, but no more than IBM or BEA JVMs when they were first released for Linux). The move was quite effective in gutting GNU Classpath and recycling most of its contributors as openjdk contributors.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 1, 2013 22:19 UTC (Mon) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (6 responses)

gcj was never really good enough for real-world use. It's slow, has unreliable garbage collector and API coverage was spotty. Even Eclipse (which doesn't depend on AWT or SWING) barely run under it.

Sun JDK actually accessible in source code form since early 2000-s, but with a very restricted license. It was used by Blackdown and other porting efforts, and also licensed by third-party proprietary JDKs like Excelsior JET.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 2, 2013 18:10 UTC (Tue) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (5 responses)

That a complex monster like Eclipse did run under it confirms it was approaching completion. Of course the work was never finished when contributors switched to openjdk en masse, so we'll never know what would have happened otherwise. But the essentials were there, and slowness never stopped gcc adoption over faster (but less agnostic) rivals.

Implying swing support would have mattered at all is laughable, given Java's complete failure story on the desktop (ironically Eclipse and derivatives is probably the most used GUI java app righ now, and as you pointed out is does not use swing). Swing is useless server-side, and IIRC Google stole SUN's mobile lunch without bothering with it either.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 2, 2013 18:16 UTC (Tue) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

Eclipse itself doesn't really use a lot of fancy JVM features. So getting it to run was great, but it did not validate the completeness of gcj even closely.

For instance, it has lots of problems with dynamic bytecode generation. Debugging support was a mess, gc was leaking like crazy and so on. We've tried to use gcj-compiled PDF manipulation library back then and had to run it in a separate process in the end.

Also, SWING is actually quite useful - IntelliJ IDEA family or products uses it quite successfully.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 2, 2013 22:01 UTC (Tue) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (3 responses)

> Swing is useless server-side

I object to that. Swing based configuration tools are very helpful if you run certain database servers remotely.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 3, 2013 7:21 UTC (Wed) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link] (2 responses)

Nothing that could not be done either with Eclipse rcp or a webapp frontend, or a legacy SUN jre dedicated to the gui app (till its rewritten).

As Adobe discovered to their grief, the market has no qualms dumping one presentation layer tech for another, as long as the affected apps are not heavy-duty end-user-oriented monsters like Microsoft Office.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 3, 2013 8:00 UTC (Wed) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link] (1 responses)

> Nothing that could not be done either with Eclipse rcp

Sure, but what is the ratio of Swing vs RCP developers? I guess it's very favorable to Swing.

> or a webapp frontend

We are talking about installation and set up tools. A webapp requires the software to be already installed and configured, so they are not a viable option.

You could have argued in favor of a text based tool, but if what you want is remote cross-platform gui, Swing + X11 is still the way to go.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 3, 2013 8:48 UTC (Wed) by nim-nim (subscriber, #34454) [Link]

>> Nothing that could not be done either with Eclipse rcp

> Sure, but what is the ratio of Swing vs RCP developers? I guess it's very > favorable to Swing.

I wouldn't guess any way, Swing is one of the technologies SUN overhyped despite lackluster adoption. In fact getting rid of all the parts SUN added to the JVM to spur adoption, despite lack of market interest, worked for Android and would have worked for gcj too.

>> or a webapp frontend

> We are talking about installation and set up tools. A webapp requires
> the software to be already installed and configured, so they are not a
> viable option.

A web app does not need intrisically more configuration than a gui app, esp if you have it listen to localhost on a specific port (like cups did) at fist.
Sure it's not pretty but none of those java setups tools are particularly pretty either.

You could have argued in favor of a text based tool, but if what you want is remote cross-platform gui, Swing + X11 is still the way to go.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Mar 30, 2013 18:39 UTC (Sat) by Company (guest, #57006) [Link] (4 responses)

That's because whenever they do have stuff that's Free, people fork it away from them, see MariaDB or Libreoffice.

Oracle is just not capable of doing Open Source.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Mar 30, 2013 21:04 UTC (Sat) by tnoo (subscriber, #20427) [Link] (1 responses)

> That's because whenever they do have stuff that's Free, people fork it away from them, see MariaDB or Libreoffice.

Most of these projects were inherited from Sun.

> Oracle is just not capable of doing Open Source.

True. Sun was always flirting with open source. They were one of the most open proprietary companies (releasing Java source code, buying and liberating Staroffice, ...), but they always had a very close grip on these projects.Apparently, being neither open nor closed is not a good business model.

Oracle, it seems, has no clear vision for these projects, dumped Openoffice on Apache, and it seems is not ready, but still obliged, to deal with Java, Mysql, Solaris, and other stuff.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Mar 31, 2013 11:21 UTC (Sun) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

Funny that Java is mentioned elsewhere in this thread as "doing a Java". As you probably well recall, there were a number of free reimplementations of Java. At the time the combination of GNU Classpath and Apache Harmony was getting quite useful. This has forced Sun's hand to free Java or risk losing control of the Java brand. Eventually Sun released Java in a license explicitly compatible with Classpath (GPL with an exception for Classpath) and incompatible with Harmony.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Mar 31, 2013 11:18 UTC (Sun) by zdzichu (subscriber, #17118) [Link] (1 responses)

ZFS has already been forked. Oracle's path and community path diverged considerably right now. Linux community is not widely represented in fork, because fork is CDDL licensed still. But IllumOSes and FreeBSDs of open source develop that fork, having long forgotten Oracle influences.

ZFS on Linux 0.6.1

Posted Apr 8, 2013 15:04 UTC (Mon) by Lennie (subscriber, #49641) [Link]

For those that want to know more about what happend to Solaris and the community/developers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc