Hi Scott,
In my view--keeping in mind I Am Not A Lawyer (IANAL)--there are two
basic questions here:
- Does ZFS truly infringe upon the WAFL patents?
- Is the WAFL patent valid, or is there enough prior art to invalidate
the patent?
In addition to those there's also the question of whether the storagetek "virtual disk" patents are also valid or not.
My view is that the NetApp patents are not all that broad and probably aren't 100% applicable to ZFS; the storage tek patents are so broad that they would cover the modern day conception of a LUN or SNAPSHOT, not a specific implementation thereof.
FWIW, IANAL ;)
Regards, Max
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com on behalf of Glenn Walker Sent: Thu 10/25/2007 1:09 PM To: No More Linux!; toasters@mathworks.com Subject: RE: The End of All Filers?
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.
NetApp responds with 'cease/desist' method, which I'm sure SUN would do if someone were to outright copy the SUN kernel (or something else - like their nifty CPUs).
SUN is now on the high-and-mighty track of touting freedom of information and how patents are effectively evil when used to stifle competition... yet they are going to use same said patents to try to force NetApp to give up their suit?
What did I miss?
It sounds very much as if SUN copied the stuff that makes WAFL what it is, and gave it to everyone in the world as a way to hurt NetApp's business model.
I'm all for free info, and would love to see ZFS on a small storage platform (OpenFiler\FreeNAS) in my house, but this is fishy and seemingly unethical on SUNs part.
-----Original Message----- From: owner-toasters@mathworks.com [mailto:owner-toasters@mathworks.com] On Behalf Of No More Linux! Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 10:32 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: The End of All Filers?