Linus likes ZFS, but

Online world is abuzz with discussions on the mail that Linus Torvalds sent to lkmk.org with some seemingly incendiary anti-Sun remarks, and a more cool-headed response by the Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz. It has sent all the Paris Hilton front page stories down to page 5 to bite the dust. Some things this all seems to imply:

- OpenSolaris has surely begun to ruffle some feathers; even Linus says OpenSolaris' ZFS is something which could make Linux to change its license. That is something!

- The only thing most Linux developers including Linus think OpenSolaris needs Linux for are drivers. Does it imply that if a user can get a machine working with OpenSolaris, there'd be no need to install Linux?

- Linux users want ZFS. Linux developers have started to realize its importance as a Filesystem, but are diverting the issue with licensing and patent issues. Why not directly talk to Sun and implement the stuff? Surely. if FreeBSD and Mac OS X can implement it, so can Linux. It could be that it is harder to port it to Linux and the developers have become lazy.

- Somehow Linus seems to know that "Linux code is _better_". Does it mean he already has peeked into OpenSolaris code and compared it with the Linux before coming to conclusion? That is interesting, and as illuminating as his assertion.

I have a great respect for Linus as is evidenced by one of my earlier posts. But mails like this are uncharacteristic of him. I even feel that it could have been rebuked as FUD-spreading if it had come from someone other, say Microsoft. Hopefully, in the future, Linux and OpenSolaris will be living at peace and users will have choice of an OS not dictated by the license.

ZFS flavor of the month

A week after Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz commented that ZFS would be in Leopard, an Apple executive said, "ZFS is not happening", when questioned about ZFS's inclusion in Leopard. Without ZFS announcement in the Apple WWDC, Mac developers would be disappointed and some reporters said they felt sleepy during the keynote.

(Update : Apple has denied the executive's claims and is clarifying that ZFS will be available as a limited option in OS X. See comments on the original story for details.)

ZFS seems to be flavor of the month. While many were expecting Apple to announce it was adding ZFS to Mac OS X, it doesn't seem likely after reading the Apple executive's comment. At least not in the forthcoming release.

In other news, ZFS was reviewed very positively in an InfoWorld article. The editor reviewing the ZFS was all praise for it. "It’s not every day that the computer industry delivers the level of innovation found in Sun's ZFS. More and more advances in the science of IT are based on simply multiplying the status quo. ZFS breaks all the rules here, and it arrives in an amazingly well-thought-out and nicely implemented solution."
Ok that makes up for "late by a year review." One thing that I've observed is that though Sun says ZFS doesn't stand for Zettabyte File System anymore, most reporters still make it a point to expand ZFS that way.

Then, eWEEK gave an Excellence award to ZFS in the E-Business Foundations category. ZFS deserves many such awards and kudos. It has made a big difference in the world of File systems.