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Apple Confirms No (Default) ZFS In Leopard
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Jun 12, 2007 11:37 AM
from the zf-never dept.
from the zf-never dept.
javipas writes "Despite recent rumors about the possible inclusion of ZFS as the filesystem of choice for MacOS X 10.5 'Leopard', an Apple executive has denied this possibility. Brian Croll, senior director of product marketing for the Mac OS has as much as said 'ZFS is not happening ... Croll declined to comment on statements made last week by Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz, who said the use of ZFS would be announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Upon further questioning, Croll would only confirm that Apple had never said ZFS would be a part of Leopard. A representative with Sun did not have any immediate comment.' Users of the future operating system will have to keep working with HFS+, a filesystem that is almost ten years old now." Update: 06/12 19:57 GMT by KD : An Apple spokesman contacted InformationWeek with a correction, which they ran as a comment on their original story: What Apple meant to say was, "ZFS would be available as a limited option, but not as the default file system."
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Sun CEO Says ZFS Will Be 'the File System' for OSX 384 comments
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ZFS Set To Eventually Play Larger Role in OSX 196 comments
BlueMerle writes with the news that Sun's ZFS filesystem is going to see 'rudimentary support' under OSX Leopard. That's a stepping stone to bigger and better things, as the filesystem will eventually play a much larger role in Apple OS versions. AppleInsider reports: "The developer release, those people familiar with the matter say, is a telltale sign that Apple plans further adoption of ZFS under Mac OS X as the operating system matures. It's further believed that ZFS is a candidate to eventually succeed HFS+ as the default operating system for Mac OS X -- an unfulfilled claim already made in regard to Leopard by Sun's chief executive Jonathan Schwartz back in June. Unlike Apple's progression from HFS to HFS+, ZFS is not an incremental improvement to existing technology, but rather a fundamentally new approach to data management. It aims to provide simple administration, transactional semantics, end-to-end data integrity, and immense scalability."
[+]
Hardware: Apple Removes Nearly All Reference To ZFS 361 comments
Roskolnikov writes "Apple has apparently decided that ZFS isn't really ready for prime time. We've been discussing Apple/ZFS rumors, denials, and sightings for some years now. Currently a search on Apple's site for ZFS yields only two hits, one of them probably an oversight in the ZFS-cleansing program and the other a reference to open source. Contrast this with an item from the Google cache regarding ZFS and Snow Leopard. Apple has done this kind of disappearing act in the past, but I was really hoping that this was one feature promise they would keep. I certainly hope this isn't the first foot in the grave for ZFS on OS X."
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Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
Jonathan *had* to know he might get burned for spilling the beans before Steve. Jobs has a track record of being harsh, almost vindictive in his dealings with companies which betray his trust.
Exhibit A [insanely-great.com]: Samsung runs their mouth about being selected to supply software to drive the next-gen iPod Nano. Apple turns around and drops them.
Exhibit B [geek.com]: ATI runs their mouth about some specs for new macs before Macworld. Apple removes ATI boards from their computers and refuses to offer them as a build-to-order.
Simply put, don't try to scoop The Steve.
Parent
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
ATI runs their mouth about some specs for new macs before Macworld. Apple removes ATI boards from their computers and refuses to offer them as a build-to-order.
Which really underscores the stupidity of Steve's arrogance. I'm sure ATI wanted that contract, it was a nice contract, but Apple is NOTHING in the great scheme of the PC market. And there aren't that many major players in the high-end graphic chip game. Why play the prima donna, when he might have to deal with them in the future?
Parent
Considering ATI's drivers... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because Apple stock is so low compared to when he took charge.
Let's see, Apple is about 5% of the graphics card market share. ATI has about 25% of the market right now, so they would represent a 20% increase in sales for ATI, hmmm, I think that might be worth a little bit of work to get the contract. Gee what do we have to do to manage such a contract... not violate our confidentiality agreement, that does sound pretty hard.
There are enough so that Apple has a few choices.
If people violate your trust and undermine your market position, why would you keep doing business with them? If, at some point in the future Apple does do business with ATI again, do you think ATI will take keeping things confidential seriously or do you think they'll stupidly lose a giant contract while gaining nothing again? What about all of Apple's other suppliers for components? Do you think they will take confidentiality seriously? By punishing ATI, Apple showed they were serious and would not put up with that kind of stupidity. Now their statements to suppliers are credible instead of hot air.
Parent
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hubris often leads to poor decisions. An arrogant prick who is always right is a hero -- until he's wrong.
Jobs has done alot of great stuff -- he's a visionary who has beaten cancer and grown an amazing company at the same time. That doesn't mean that he's infallible. The obsession with secrecy costs Apple alot of business -- there are today enterprises that would purchase thousands of Macs, but the needless obsession with secrecy and refusal to listen to some customer desires hurts the company in the long run.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Although it's more like Apple holds 2% market share and Ati 50%.
Do a quick Google search for their relative market shares. Apple has 4-7% of the US market sales. ATI has 22-26% of US market sales. If you want to look at global market sales, Apple drops to 3% and ATI drops to 8%, since globally the high end market makes up a much smaller chunk of that market then it does in the US, with on the board solutions predominating.
Now before you waste my time with redefining the market definition to exclude on the board solutions, remember that is the percentage computers we'
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Not exactly true. Apple is one of the largest PC manufacturers (and was when they dropped ATI as well). Their OS share may be low, but they are a big hardware maker. (Fourth largest in the September quarter last year: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-6127255.html?t a g=nl [zdnet.com]).
For an OS comparison, a Dell is the same as an Acer is the same a HP. But as for hardware, these are all different.
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Haven't you learned anything? (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, ZFS is probably not important enough for Apple to punish Sun over a set of flapping gums. If you want a better conspiracy theory, perhaps Apple was testing Sun to see if they could keep a secret. The answer is "No."
Really, though, everybody knows ZFS is interesting, and Apple is porting it to Mac OS X. It's quite likely that nobody at Apple knows when or if ZFS on Mac OS X will be mature enough to become a candidate for replacing the default filesystem. It probably won't happen before October, but that's not to say it will never happen.
Parent
Are you sure about your data? (Score:5, Insightful)
Additionally, I think people are getting crazy reactionary, assuming that the gaffe by SUN was responsible for ZFS not making Leopard.
There's no way to know if it was even in there before anyway.
And besides, Leopard was delayed by 6 months back in March. When you delay a product, you don't go adding new features to it, it'll just make the schedule longer. You might in fact defer features you were thinking of adding, like ZFS. It reduces the work to be done and helps shorten the schedule, keeping you closer to the original date.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
spelling (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Haven't you learned anything Sun? (Score:5, Insightful)
PREVIOUS POST [slashdot.org]
Parent
Wow, 10 years old?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow, 10 years old?! (Score:4, Informative)
...and HFS+ is just an incremental update from HFS - adding stuff like journaling and support for larger drives, long unicode file names, and some unixisms like inodes and /dev and hard links and case sensitivity.
So you can really say that HFS+ is almost 22 years old now. [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Re:Wow, 10 years old?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Far better to talk about what features it lacks. Or if you're trying to defend it, talk about its stability record. Have filesystems really advanced, since journalling became the standard way to do things, in any specific way that benefits regular users ?
Parent
Ooookaaaay... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because a file system is something that should definitely be re-designed every two years or so. You know, just to stay "current"...
Re:Ooookaaaay... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Sun is shipping it (Score:3, Insightful)
Their core business is very expensive hardware and software for demanding users: banks and the likes.
If you've gotta give the benefit of the doubt to someone in this area, it's gotta be Sun.
Senior Director of Product Marketing (Score:5, Funny)
Retribution (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Retribution (Score:4, Insightful)
This really doesn't make any sense. Why would Apple have had tens of thousands of nVidia cards, something that otherwise they wouldn't be using, just sitting around?
Parent
Re:Retribution (Score:4, Insightful)
If this is simply retaliatory and not a readiness issue, then Apple is seriously undermining its own products in favor of PR. The truth of the matter is that it doesn't much matter if Samsung coded solutions for Apple or someone else did it, and it didn't particularly matter if ATI made the video cards or Nvidia, these companies can be switched out rather interchangeably. However, ZFS is a giant step forward in file systems and has loads more features than anything else, ripping it out just because they "spilled the beans" would be babyish and hostile. Any logical mind would reason that this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison of retaliation as there's no similar vendor. It's most likely a readiness issue.
Parent
Re:Retribution (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Err...no he didn't. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Croll declined to comment on statements made last week by Sun Chief Executive Jonathan Schwartz, who said the use of ZFS would be announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Upon further questioning, Croll would only confirm that Apple had never said ZFS would be a part of Leopard."
That reads like "would neither confirm nor deny to our reporter" to me, not "has denied".
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Err...no he didn't. (Score:4, Informative)
What he declined to comment on was the comment made by the Sun executive, but he did comment on ZFS itself.
Parent
What the cat said (Score:3, Informative)
Obviously they haven't said anything about ZFS being included, but that doesn't imply they aren't including it. Sun might just have said something they weren't supposed to, or ZFS might just have been considered for inclusion. Who knows...
ZFS looks great but. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
If you're having CPU issues with ZFS, you're in the HD video business, in which case you'll have a dual CPU machine any
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The other issue people aren't thinking about is making older Mac apps work on the new fil
Notes from a WWDC curmudgeon (Score:5, Informative)
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 4 20:48 zfs.readonly.kext
Re:Notes from a WWDC curmudgeon (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering all the talk about how Apple retalliates against people who cross them, don't you think you out to abide by the Non-Disclosure Agreement you entered into when you received that Leopard build?
Parent
Correction Coming: ZFS to be available (sort of) (Score:5, Interesting)
An Apple spokesperson seeking to clarify Croll's statement indicated that ZFS would be available as a limited option, but not as the default file system."
Further detail:
It's only available as a read only option from the command line.
We're still trying to find out what this means, but a correction is coming.
Jives with editorial comments on TFA (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
The story is not accurate. (Score:4, Informative)
As to the news, it seems that Croll mispoke a couple of times when asked about ZFS in Leopard. Despite direct questions about Sun CEO Schwartz's claims that ZFS is there, Croll flatly denied the reports to two of our reporters in a 1:1 interview.
An Apple spokesperson called us Tuesday seeking to clarify Croll's statement. Croll was apparently supposed to indicate that ZFS would be available as a limited option, but not as the default file system."
We are now writing a separate story to note Apple's mis-statement and hopefully to reveal more about how ZFS would work in Leopard.
We'll update you here when that story is live.
Michael Singer
InformationWeek - West Coast Editor
Re:Mac OS X Leopard (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost as unprecedented as a Mac zealot making hilariously inaccurate technical claims because they simply don't understand what they're talking about, but don't see that a justification for keeping their mouths shut.
Come October, Mac OS X will serve everyone with one price, one version, one install: one vision of simple 64-bit desktop goodness.
I made a deal with a hitman. If I ever fall in love with a company to that extent he's going to come round and shoot me in the face. I find it a more palatable option than allowing myself to become a PR spewing corporate cocksucker.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A new iChat?? (Score:4, Interesting)
From the Leopard Sneak Peak, still in Google's cache here [72.14.253.104]
However, there is no mention of iChat Desktop sharing on Apple's new iChat for Leopard page:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/icha
This sucks. I was really hoping to replace my kludgy VNC setups and NAT tables with a clean, elegant, and free remote desktop solution. Thanks a lot Apple!
Parent
Re:A new iChat?? (Score:4, Informative)
Image here [apple.com]
Additionally, the button for screen sharing is still present in the ichat screenshots:
Image here [apple.com]
(bottom right in the buddy list window)
Parent
Still there (Score:4, Informative)
"By clicking on a connected Mac, you can see and control that computer (if authorized, of course) as if you were sitting in front of it. "
Parent
It's still there - just not in iChat (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/find
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What's more likely is that there were technical troubles getting it to work with the rest of the OS that couldn't be fixed or worked around before the release date. As others have noted [slashdot.org], the support for Z