OK, here's what bugs me about Schwartz's comments.
He brings up FreeBSD, and Netapp's 'use' of this open-sourced OS on which Ontap is 'based' - let's just put the validity of that statement away for the time being because we'll start a whole fork of the conversation just on THAT (yeah, and Vista is based on MS-DOS 1).
He (jonathan) vilifies Netapp as hypocritical for using the open-sourced OS, yet trying to kill poor little open-sourced ZFS, insinuating that Netapp will approve of open-source when it suits them and fight it when it becomes inconvenient.
Here's the thing- BSD VOLUNTARILY open-sourced FreeBSD. It was THEIR CHOICE because THEY OWNED IT. Netapp didn't take SCO Unix (if they 'took' anything at all) and said "we'll use that, I found the code on Gopher" (well, it WAS a long time ago.).
Netapp did not voluntarily release WAFL nor would one expect them to. For Sun to open-source IP that it did not own is NOT LEGAL OR CORRECT, assuming that Netapp's patents hold up to the prior art claims (and I think they will, since ZFS and its underpinnings came later).
Someone with a cynical view could concoct a few scenarios in which Sun DELIBERATELY open-sourced ZFS because perhaps they KNEW they would get crucified in a patent battle, and by open-sourcing it, they let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. They do say that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission, right? Tagging Netapp with an 'anti-open-source' label gains an instant fan-base of many Linux freaks (I say 'freaks' affectionately as I am one), and comes with some real possible economic pain for Netapp, so maybe there was a mis-calculation that netapp would just let it be. A mis-calculation, by the way, that could have severe ramifications on Mr. Schwartz's employment I'm sure. The tone of jonathan's blog does wreak a bit of mad desperation, doesn't it?
Well enough of that. I'm going out with netapp tonight in san Francisco! :-)
Glenn (the other one)
Subject: RE: The End of All Filers?
Glenn wrote:
Let me see if I got this straight: ZFS copied the snapshot technologies, and general way that WAFL works, which is patented by NetApp. Then released it to the open source community.
You got that about right.
What did I miss?
StorageTek's Iceberg product was where a lot of the concepts came from originally.
It's a matter of the judge & jury's preference and the questions that are put before them - should you be able to implement a technology solution concept with your code if you use some of the same algorithms? Did Sun actually see the source code and steal it? Who is a llowed to copy who? Who owns the original patents?
Looks like quite a circular argument to me.
It'll be interesting to see who wins.