The (unstable and development-oriented only) filesystem Btrfs version 0.14 has been released. "Btrfs is a new copy on write filesystem for Linux aimed at implementing advanced features while focusing on fault tolerance, repair and easy administration. Initially developed by Oracle, Btrfs is licensed under the GPL and open for contribution from anyone."
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http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org btrfs homepage for the adventureous
If it is as stable, this will very likely replace ext3/4 as the default linux filesystem in most major distros.
per directory snapshots and cow have been
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Although in a very early state I'm soooo excited about this filing system. In stead of whining about 'ZFS for Linux' I think this project has a higher change of succeeding in being the 'next-generation' filing system for Linux. I'm not saying it's better than ZFS, but is doesn't have the political issues of ZFS.
Also I get the idea that kernel community is waiting in anticipation for this stuff. And now Hans R. is probably going to jail for a long time we can forget Reiser4...
Long live BTRFS!
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That's life. Seriously. Choices have consequences, and some of them are beneficial and some of them are not. It is unlikely that ZFS will see inclusion in the Linux kernel, and it is unlikely that btrfs will see inclusion in the *Solaris kernel. (Should that be plural or not?) Sometimes those kinds of barriers are significant, and sometimes they are not. I am not convinced that the sharing of filesystem code has much benefit over cross-pollenation of *ideas* in this particular case, for reasons which I have outlined elsewhere in this thread.
I find that discussions on licensing often end up doing nothing more than generating bad blood and resentment between the various parties, without yielding any meaningful benefits.
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An impedance mismatch between the ZFS architecture and Linux kernel architecture is *not* political, however. Sun's goals for ZFS, apparently, are for it the be the Solaris filesystem. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. That strategy has its strengths. And in that case, putting the layering of logical levels into ZFS itself makes perfect sense. However, supporting a broad range of filesystems is a strategy which also has its strengths, and that is what Linux does. In that case, having all the layering of raid, volume manager, fs, etc. in ZFS itself makes no sense at all.
No NIH is required to see that ZFS, while a good fit for Solaris, is a poor fit for Linux.
As to licensing... that does have a political aspect. But the problem is primarily a practical one from the Linux kernel devs standpoint. Although an argument could be made that Sun's choice of license might have been motivated by political (or perhaps "strategic" would be a better word) factors.
Edited 2008-04-30 16:44 UTC
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I wonder why we haven't seen any implementation of ZFS in the Linux kernel.
Just because something is illegal doesn't mean the community won't work on it. Look at XBMC, although now it has a Linux port, it was originally made for hacked xboxes using an illegally acquired and unlicensed XDKs. That didn't stop people from working on it and hosting the binaries in some country that doesn't care about those issues.
Would it be illegal to ship a compiled Linux kernel along side some ZFS source code that has been modified to work with the kernel, and then supply a script to compile it as a module?
I definitely see how shipping a kernel binary with that support built directly into it would be illegal. But if you leave it to the end user to build it is it illegal?
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Would it be illegal to ship a compiled Linux kernel along side some ZFS source code that has been modified to work with the kernel, and then supply a script to compile it as a module?
I definitely see how shipping a kernel binary with that support built directly into it would be illegal. But if you leave it to the end user to build it is it illegal?
That would still be illegal. If you really, really need ZFS that bad then I'd suggest to go to http://zfs-on-fuse.blogspot.com/