Episode Details

This week on BSD Now, we clear up some ZFS FUD, show you how to write a NetBSD kernel module, and cover DragonflyBSD on the desktop.

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ZFS is the best file system (for now)

• In my ongoing effort to fight misinformation and FUD about ZFS, I would like to go through this post in detail and share my thoughts on the current state and future of OpenZFS.
• The post starts with:

ZFS should have been great, but I kind of hate it: ZFS seems to be trapped in the past, before it was sidelined it as the cool storage project of choice; it’s inflexible; it lacks modern flash integration; and it’s not directly supported by most operating systems. But I put all my valuable data on ZFS because it simply offers the best level of data protection in a small office/home office (SOHO) environment. Here’s why.
When ZFS first appeared in 2005, it was absolutely with the times, but it’s remained stuck there ever since. The ZFS engineers did a lot right when they combined the best features of a volume manager with a “zettabyte-scale” filesystem in Solaris 10
The skies first darkened in 2007, as NetApp sued Sun, claiming that their WAFL patents were infringed by ZFS. Sun counter-sued later that year, and the legal issues dragged on.

• The lawsuit was resolved, and it didn’t really impede ZFS. Some say it is the reason that Apple didn’t go with ZFS, but there are other theories too.

By then, Sun was hitting hard times and Oracle swooped in to purchase the company. This sowed further doubt about the future of ZFS, since Oracle did not enjoy wide support from open source advocates.

• Yes, Oracle taking over Sun and closing the source for ZFS definitely seemed like a setback at the time, but the OpenZFS project was started and active development has continued as an ever increasing pace. As of today, more than half of the code in OpenZFS has been written since the fork from the last open version of Oracle ZFS.

the CDDL license Sun applied to the ZFS code was [https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/](judged incompatible) with the GPLv2 that covers Linux, making it a non-starter for inclusion in the world’s server operating system.

• That hasn’t stopped the ZFS-on-Linux project, or Ubuntu…

Although OpenSolaris continued after the Oracle acquisition, and FreeBSD embraced ZFS, this was pretty much the extent of its impact outside the enterprise. Sure, NexentaStor and [http://blog.fosketts.net/2008/09/15/greenbytes-embraces-extends-zfs/](GreenBytes) helped push ZFS forward in the enterprise, but Oracle’s lackluster commitment to Sun in the datacenter started having an impact.

• Lots of companies have adopted OpenZFS for their products. Before OpenZFS, there were very few non-Sun appliances that used ZFS, now there are plenty.
• OpenZFS Wiki: Companies with products based on OpenZFS

OpenZFS remains