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Apple Confirms No (Default) ZFS In Leopard
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."
Too bad NTFS is almost 15, and I heard FAT stopped counting (because of a technical limitation).
I agree.
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: 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: 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.
"Users of the future operating system will have to keep working with HFS+, a filesystem that is almost ten years old now."
Yes, because a file system is something that should definitely be re-designed every two years or so. You know, just to stay "current"...
Why do reporters insist on interviewing marketing goons to uncover tech specs? This guy probably thought the reporter was asking if Leopard was going to include Zurich Financial Services.
When I worked for Apple, at 6am ATI let slip that they were making cards for The PowerMac and "something else". That "something else" was the cube. My boss got a call about 5 minutes later from Steve telling us to remove all references to ATI on all web pages, in 17 languages, by 9am.
The TFA says:
"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
It even goes so far as to allow 64-bit apps without a 32-bit binary to run in 32-bit mode transparently, which is unprecedented thus far.
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.
ZFS is in the WWDC Leopard build. It's currently configured for read-only, although full functionality is in there. Write ability is disabled for stability/integrity issues. /System/Library/Extensions:
drwxr-xr-x 3 root wheel 102 Jun 4 20:48 zfs.readonly.kext
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?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I was one of the two reporters in that interview and we both were surprised by Croll's comment. We were just contacted by Apple to say that what we heard (or what we both thought we heard) was not the fully story. The real story is:
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.