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Sun CEO Says NetApp Lied in Fear of Open Source
Lucas123 writes "In reaction to NetApp's patent infringement lawsuit against Sun, CEO Jonathan Schwartz today said in his blog that NetApp basically lied in its legal filing when it said Sun asked them for licensing fees for use of their ZFS file system technology. In a separate statement, Sun said NetApp's lawsuit is about fear over open-source ZFS technology as a competitive threat. 'The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson'."
Well, like my own position on buying stuff from Amazon or Disney (which means that at present I have spent $0 on them in the last ten years), I think I can successfully live without tech from Sun OR NetApp -- until the current software patent madness comes to an end -- or at least the injunction induced extortion rackets die down.
Which is where Open Source and GPL'd software really starts to make sense, don't you think?
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
Would they? How do you figure that one?
Sure they would. Because modern desktop Java is perceived as "slow" primarily because of slow VM launch. After the damn thing started, it feels pretty fast. To check that, try OmegaT computer aided translation program (http://www.omegat.info/). It is coded in Java and is not slow at all. It even starts reasonably fast, especially with the bundled Java runtime.
That said, I don't like Java on desktop anyway. It just looks and feels foreign everywhere.
NetApp and Sun should jointly back down and call it quits. And fire all their lawyers, or at least give them something useful to do like bring in the coffee.
When a company resorts to legal crap, it's because they're no longer viable on technical merit. And both Sun and NetApp *are* still good technically, so this argument is pointless.
Seriously, fire the lawyers on both your staffs who suggested to litigate, as they are bringing your companies down. And no, I don't care who started it, since you're both at it now.
And then go back to doing good things.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Basically, ZFS is a plagiarism of NetApp's WAFL and technologies NetApp invented back in the early-mid 1990's, applied for patents upon in 1995, and were granted those patents in 1998. The principal architect of ZFS, has even admitted in writing that he used the "copy on write" (or "always write out of place") right out of NetApp's WAFL design.
NetApp developed this concept into a marketable product, jumped thru all the standard legal hoops to protect it for themselves, and was just fine with letting the open source community use their patented technology in ZFS without beating anyone over the head with their patents... until Sun cast the first stone at NetApp, and Sun tried to claim the novel methods that NetApp developed as their own invention. Sound familiar? NetApp had no choice but to defend their patented technology against Sun.
Sun is not historically a friend of Open Source
What about OpenOffice and OpenSolaris? Are you suggesting that they did something so evil that it counteracts these important projects?
It doesn't matter at all why they support free software.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.
Wow, this is complete FUD.
Sun has been involved in Open Source before there was a term "Open Source."
NFS, OpenOffice, Java and it's associated technologies, Solaris, etc.
Put the crack pipe down.
"Sun is not historically a friend of Open Source."
Bollocks! Sun has been pushing open source and (far more important) open standards since before the religion was formed and the term was capitalised.
Ever hear of...
NFS
NIS
NIS+
Looking at a relatively short-term, recent, and (eventually) harmless contract with The Enemy and calling them 'not historically a friend of Open Source' is just more whining.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Stringing together something with bubblegum and duct tape is easy. Making that bubblegum and duct tape appear like a seamless storage cluster is another matter. This is what people (still) pay netapp for.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Except that the editors still, ultimately, pick which stories they want. The firehose is just a suggestion.
http://www.mhall119.com
I've read both Jonathan Schwartz's and David Hick's blogs, and yes, they both are trying to spin it their way, as would be expected.
However keep in mind that NetApp started this. NetApp saying that Sun started this is incorrect, because that would be equating StorageTek with Sun. And if this were purely a StorageTek issue, then ZFS wouldn't be involved.
So what really happened is NetApp is being damaged or fears being damaged from open source storage platforms, ZFS in particular, and they have decided to sue Sun. NetApp is rightly very concerned about a big backlash from bringing this kind of suit, so they are trying to confuse the issue as much as possible by saying that the fight goes back all the way to StorageTek.
And I really believe Jonathan when he says in his blog that he was blind sided by NetApp on this. David Hitz is trying to paint a picture that Sun wouldn't return the NetApp lawyer's calls so NetApp had no recourse but to get their attention by sueing them. If Dave Hitz really wanted to get some traction on this with Sun, why didn't he call Jonathan himself. Had he done so, David Hitz would have said so in his blog.
Once the community thinks about this, and realizes that if NetApp prevails, and kills ZFS, then the prospects for improvements in open-source file system technology will be greatly set back. I would expect an army of open source volunteers scrutinizing all of NetApp's patent claims, and trying to find prior art. Also a large number of open-source organization Amicus Curiae briefs, should this thing progress.
I just don't think Sun is stupid enough to steal someone else's IP if they believe they didn't believe they had a reasonable chance of defending their actions in court. Time will tell though....
Meanwhile, EMC must be delighted at the prospect of NetApp losing this thing. Bye-bye NetApp. But, they're probably furious though at NetApp for validating the concept that ZFS running on a commodity platform is a competitive storage platform. Because in the long run, EMC's storage business is just as much at risk as is NetApp's.