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'."

Comments

Ironic-- if true-- given NetApp's FOSS foundation

[samuel4242]

I vaguely remember that NetApp machines run a stripped down version of BSD. So perhaps this is FUD from Sun.

The battlin' bloggers

[eln]

In response to Schwartz, Netapp CEO Dan Warmenhoven declared that he was not in fact lying. Rather, Schwartz was the one lying, indicating further that Schwartz's pants were on fire. Schwartz angrily denied this with a fuming "nuh uh!" and indicated Warmenhoven was a chicken. Warmenhoven then retorted by comparing himself to rubber and Mr. Schwartz to glue.

Stay tuned for the next exciting installment, where Schwartz will compare his father's fighting ability and overall physical prowess with that of Warmenhoven's father.

Re:The battlin' bloggers

[Aladrin]

Don't forget about the grandmas and setting each other's flags on fire.

Re:The battlin' bloggers

[the_fat_kid]

iko, iko, all the day long.

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[DaedalusHKX]

Details :)

You can't let details get in the way of press. Even bad press is STILL good press.

Suits and countersuits

[CodeShark]

All based on what? Patents on software algorithms, that brainchild of the '90's when some legal geniuses decided that "how you do business" is as patentable as a device, which was not the intent of the Founding Fathers of the good ole' US of A.

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?

Re:Suits and countersuits

[Anonymous Coward]

Probably the only way to end the madness of patents is to push for patentability of legal arguments and contractual clauses - the former are quite closely analogous to business methods and the latter to software. Lawyers might start singing a different tune if they have to pay Beelzebub, Belial and Azazel USD20000 each time they write a contract that uses the subjunctive or something like that.

Re:Suits and countersuits

[Corwn of Amber]

Why is that modded 0? +Funny, plz

Re:Suits and countersuits

[FudRucker]

more like it should be modded +insightful or at least +interesting

Re:Suits and countersuits

[hax0r_this]

Good luck living without Java, OpenOffice (or MS Office, I assume if you are boycotting Sun then MS was on the list long ago), or any other tech from Sun.

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[AKAImBatman]

[Sun has] banned [Java]'s use in any and all internal projects

Typical urban legend. Propagated by a Slashdot troll no less. With Sun pushing up and coming Java projects like Looking Glass, Darkstar, Glassfish, and many others, one would think that people would have figured it out by now. But apparently not.

The real story is that after the introduction of Java, Sun started creating new Solaris components in Java. Unfortunately, they found out at the time that Java wasn't mature enough for what they were doing. So a ban was supposedly implemented on any new Solaris components being written in Java. Which (if the story is even true in the first place) was probably a wise move. I don't know if anyone remembers CDE around here, but having to launch Java just to change the volume was not a good design decision. Sun needed to either make the entire Desktop in Java (in which case most of the performance problems would disappear and the memory hit would be marginalized) or go back to using native components for all the widgets. The idea of a hybrid Desktop just wasn't going to cut it.

As it happens, Sun chose to assist the GNOME project and made that their primary desktop. Then they rebranded it as the "Java Desktop System" in one of the most confusing brand changes in history. And that is where we sit today.

<paul-harvey>And now you know... the rest of the story. Good day!</paul-harvey>

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[varmittang]

According to the wiki entry on ZFS, its under the CDDL. CDDL is based on the Mozilla Public License and on the CDDL wiki is states, "Files licensed under the CDDL can be combined with files licensed under other licenses, whether open source or proprietary. The Free Software Foundation considers it a free license incompatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL). In fact, this is too generalized. Some restrictions in the GPL prevent GPLd code to appear inside CDDLd projects." So it sounds like the CDDL can go into GPLd projects, but not the other way around. But again, these are wiki entries, take them with a grain of salt.

Sun... THE Sun?

[ajs]

Sun Microsystems said, "The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors"?! OK, I'm looking around, but I don't see Rod Serling anywhere....

Joking aside, I guess it's a sign of things to come. Sun's dance with open source almost certainly presages the end of the behemoth proprietary software vendors. This makes sense, of course. Typical software that runs typical computers is now a commodity, downloadable for free over the Internet, and modifiable by all comers. The business world must adapt to this change, and re-define the software industry in terms of it, while finding a way to maintain their revenue streams.

Re:Sun... THE Sun?

[jimicus]

Typical software that runs typical computers is now a commodity, downloadable for free over the Internet, and modifiable by all comers. The business world must adapt to this change, and re-define the software industry in terms of it, while finding a way to maintain their revenue streams.

The OS and a few applications may be a commodity, however a lot of applications certainly aren't. Accounting and payroll are the first most obvious that spring to mind, though there are many others.

That being said, very large chunks of the IT business have been making money either with non-typical software or consulting to tweak typical software to non-typical needs since the dawn of the industry itself.

Re:Sun... THE Sun?

[betterunixthanunix]

It is a start, but it hardly makes a dent in the proprietary software world. I am at a university right now, and here is an abbreviated list of free vs. proprietary software in use: Free: Linux, Solaris, KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, VNC, OpenSSH, GNU, GIMP Proprietary: Windows, Mac OS X, IE7, Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, Citrix/Metaframe, MS Office, Microchip PIC software, Xilinx, Solid Edge, Visual Studio, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Apple i*, Oracle, PSPICE This list is a bit misleading, because it doesn't count the number of installations. Counting that, the figures are closer to 95% proprietary for desktops, and 70% proprietary for servers. And my university isn't even the worst. I know of another where free software support is a few pages on printing using command line LPR, and a recommendation to use Firefox. If the managers, accountants, and programmers and engineers who graduate from these schools have never heard of free software, then they are less likely to order it or recommend it at work (which is why Microsoft has been paying my school so much to teach freshman engineers about MS Office and Visual Studio). Sun going open source? Hardly a dent in the problem.

Re:Sun... THE Sun?

[ajs]

It is a start, but it hardly makes a dent in the proprietary software world. I am at a university right now, and here is an abbreviated list of free vs. proprietary software in use:

Free: Linux, Solaris, KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, VNC, OpenSSH, GNU, GIMP

Proprietary: Windows, Mac OS X, IE7, Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, Citrix/Metaframe, MS Office, Microchip PIC software, Xilinx, Solid Edge, Visual Studio, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Apple i*, Oracle, PSPICE That's about what I'd expect. As proprietary software is edged out, it will be the plethora of specialized applications that hold on the longest. The list of software that you give encompasses thousands of programs, but you notice thaat you called out very few individual open source programs. That's because the open source equivalent of Oracle that comes free with Linux is just a commodity. The open source equivalent of Acrobat that comes for free with Linux is just a commodity. Many organizations don't even realize that they already have this software installed, and buy proprietary equivalents.

This is ultimately a good thing. As the potential for savings increases, a small number of businesses will start making wise fiscal decisions, and they will beat their competition. It will all play out in the long run.

Re:Sun... THE Sun?

[betterunixthanunix]

Yeah, I've noticed that. For example, Acrobat is installed on all the Linux machines, even though GNOME and KDE are also installed and each come with their own PDF functionality. Still, the problem as I see it is a lack of exposure to open source software -- the Linux computers are in a basement, and most people don't know they exist, and the Windows computers are conveniently located in the main library building, and I have seen other universities do the same thing.

See what Dave Hitz has to say

[abalacha]

Have a look at http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/09/litigoperatio n-.html before jumping into any conclusions.

Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say

[canuck57]

The reality is NetApp is in trouble. Lets face it, 2TB of storage yesterday was big bucks. Today, it is 4 Seagate drives at Best Buy and fit in one PC. Cluster 4 dual AMD x2's together on 1000GB interconnects and it has never been cheaper to spin 8TB into your own appliance. Do it with Linux or Solaris. Or like NetApps, BSD.

Same thing happened with SCO. Shrinking user base from competition and poor product maintenance. Too much money for Gocci shoes and not enough R&D. NetApp, good-bye.

Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say

[jedidiah]

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.

Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say

[lukas84]

Agreed. Also, Enterprise Storage needs performance. Having 2TB of databases on 4 (or 8) arms is going to be slow as molasses.

Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say

[igb]

2TB is easy, but 2TB with decent performance is rather harder. 2TB with decent performance and good post-power-off performance is harder still. Back in the day, 2TB would be spread over 60 or more 7200rpm spindles, whereas today it's on half a dozen 7200rpm spindles. You've got the capacity, but you've got a tenth of the ops/sec. This might well not matter to you, if you're doing data warehousing or serving home directories, or it might be very important indeed if you're doing a lot of OLTP. NetApp still have a lot of margin in their product, and if you want storage that one vendor will look after, they're pretty damn good. The thing to remember is that storage is so cheap now that in a project that needs 10TB, the price of the 10TB is in the noise floor compared to the price of the people, integration, application development, user training, etc, etc. So shaving 20% of the storage costs is perhaps 2% off the project, and that might be worth it for the fact that NetApp kit just works. I happen to have recently bought 40TB from one of their competitors (Pillar), and I'm in the process of building a 30TB ZFS farm on a mix of Solaris and Dot Hill, but there's a NetApp in the corner that works extremely well.

Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say

[drsmithy]

The reality is NetApp is in trouble. Lets face it, 2TB of storage yesterday was big bucks. Today, it is 4 Seagate drives at Best Buy and fit in one PC. Cluster 4 dual AMD x2's together on 1000GB interconnects and it has never been cheaper to spin 8TB into your own appliance. Do it with Linux or Solaris. Or like NetApps, BSD.

You can build a storage solution with 90% of the functionality of enterprise-level kit like NetApp/EMC/Sun/IBM/etc with off the shelf parts, and for substantially less money. However, that last 10% is pretty much impossible to DIY (or DIY cheaply) and if you need it, you *really* need it (ie: the cost is relatively insignificant). Things like redundant controllers, mirrored cache, multipathing, FC target (although 10Gb ethernet will make that irrelevant very shortly), etc. The other benefit you get from that "enterprise" hardware is in terms of "people time" (something techies frequently have trouble both conceptualising and calculating).

With that said, such an "DIY" solution would probably meet the needs of the vast majority of customers, even many of those who think it wouldn't. Lots of environments that have spent big bucks on redundancy or claim to require 24/7 availability still frequently have single points of failure strewn all over the place. Machines with dual PSUs on the same electrical circuits, single database servers, active/standby machine pairs connected to the same KVM/serial server/network switches, ostensibly redundant infrastructure that requires human intervention to "fail over", etc.

Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say

[drsmithy]

2TB is easy, but 2TB with decent performance is rather harder. 2TB with decent performance and good post-power-off performance is harder still. Back in the day, 2TB would be spread over 60 or more 7200rpm spindles, whereas today it's on half a dozen 7200rpm spindles. You've got the capacity, but you've got a tenth of the ops/sec. This might well not matter to you, if you're doing data warehousing or serving home directories, or it might be very important indeed if you're doing a lot of OLTP. NetApp still have a lot of margin in their product, and if you want storage that one vendor will look after, they're pretty damn good. The thing to remember is that storage is so cheap now that in a project that needs 10TB, the price of the 10TB is in the noise floor compared to the price of the people, integration, application development, user training, etc, etc. So shaving 20% of the storage costs is perhaps 2% off the project, and that might be worth it for the fact that NetApp kit just works.

A lot of people lose sight of this, but there's no reason why if you need "only" 2TB, that you _buy_ only 2TB. There's no reason why a "2TB array" can't be 30*500G drives from which you only access the first ~130G and ignore the rest (as you say, storage is so cheap the "waste" is irrelevant). When you cut down the amount of physical disk space the drive head has to cover by 1/3, you improve IOPS quite a bit (and potentially save a lot of money).

Many people are finding they can save big bucks by buying 7.2k SATA drives and "short stroking" them instead of buying 15k RPM FC or SAS drives, while still achieving similar performance.

Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say

[igb]

A lot of people lose sight of this, but there's no reason why if you need "only" 2TB, that you _buy_ only 2TB. There's no reason why a "2TB array" can't be 30*500G drives from which you only access the first ~130G and ignore the rest (as you say, storage is so cheap the "waste" is irrelevant).

Power, space, heat, MTBF, complexity. I'm using some Pillar equipment that short-strokes SATA drives but makes the residue available at a lower QoS, which works well, but I can make use of the residual space. I've done what you propose in the past, but it's a lot more expensive over the whole life of the boxes than you make out.

Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say

[drsmithy]

Power, space, heat, MTBF, complexity.

Huh ? How does 30 spindles of SATA involve any more of this than 30 spindles of FC, SCSI or SAS ? You *were* lamenting about the lack of spindles from defining your storage requirements by how much space and only getting the minimum number of drives to provide that, as I understood it.

I'm using some Pillar equipment that short-strokes SATA drives but makes the residue available at a lower QoS, which works well, but I can make use of the residual space. I've done what you propose in the past, but it's a lot more expensive over the whole life of the boxes than you make out.

I don't see how it could be. 30 spindles is 30 spindles, be they fully utilised 146G drives or 1/3 utilised 500G drives.

Re:Ironic-- if true-- given NetApp's FOSS foundati

[Anonymous Coward]

The new data ONTAP GX is based on FreeBSD.
http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/04/index.html

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[akzeac]

So it's incompatible with the GPL, not really 'free software'?

GPL-compatibility is not a requirement for free software.

I like watching bloggers...

[OmniGeek]

Although I will admit that the clomping noises those wooden shoes make as they dance CAN get a bit overwhelming...

What's that? You mean those are CLOGGERS? Oh, that's different, nevermind.

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[segedunum]

The real story is that after the introduction of Java, Sun started creating new Solaris components in Java. Unfortunately, they found out at the time that Java wasn't mature enough for what they were doing.

You would have thought that they would have had some internal communication, and, you know, improved Java.

Sun needed to either make the entire Desktop in Java (in which case most of the performance problems would disappear

Would they? How do you figure that one?

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[alsta]

Are you suggesting that non-GPL software isn't free? Given the nature of the GPL and it's relative restrictive nature on derivative work, I would venture to say that it is less Free than the CDDL.

Mr. Morton of Linux Kernel fame has in terms advocated that Sun should shoot the dog that is OpenSolaris and that the company should roll over and adopt Linux as its own. And of course the obvious remark that DTrace and ZFS cannot be integrated with the Linux Kernel because both projects are licensed in an incompatible fashion. It strikes me that perhaps the Linux Kernel is licensed in such a fashion that it cannot adopt said projects? After all, how can Sun be serious about Free software unless it adopts Linux. printf("World Domination!\n");

I argue that OpenSolaris is an exciting project that has opened up innovation and has greatly contributed back to the main Solaris branch in positive ways. I don't see Sun dropping this effort anytime soon. The fact that I as a customer have a more informal way of interfacing with Sun's engineers and designers is a great improvement. I have Linux to thank for this, as it challenged Sun to step up to the plate. But that doesn't mean that Sun has to be the big bad company forever and ever. I sense this animosity in the Linux community of late and I think it's unwarranted. It's some sort of elitism that makes it so that Sun's effort is in jest, or at least less worthy. In summary, it has done little for me, but serve as a turn off for Linux.

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[mAIsE]

Here is an interesting link...

http://www.netapp.com/go/Sun%20Lawyer%20Email.pdf

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[Frosty Piss]

It really is quite simple, what parts of the open source SUN, BSD or userland Linux versions of ZFS are covered by NetApps patents. Give line numbers! Otherwise NetApp is just another SCO wanabe.

This might be so, but don't jump on Sun's bandwagon just because their PR wonks know how to play the Open Source Community with all the right buzz words, Sun is not historically a friend of Open Source. Look at the facts: it was Sun that originally brought the specter of patents to the table on this, and when the smaller patent troll balked at Sun's heavy-handedness, they pull out the "support meeeee! I'm open source!" card. Sun is full of shit on this.

By the way when was Java fully Open Sourced? Solaris is only headed that way because Sun sees the end of their proprietary money model, not because of some great love for Open Source.

More ADVERTS from IDG...

[Frosty Piss]

Yet another IDG (ComputerWorld) story from and IDG shill in how many days? These arn't stories, they're ADVERTISING INSERTS.

Looks like IDG (ComputerWorld, ITWorld, NetworkWorld...) is really hitting Slashdot HARD, either that or they have a deal with Slashdot. Here's a partial list of the shills that regularly show up and have almost 100% article acceptance rates: Lucas123
coondoggie
inkslinger77
narramissic
jcatcw

Looks like they spread out the work over a few shill user accounts, which is to be expected. If it's all OK and everything with the corporate ownership of Slashdot to be played by IDG, I suppose that's their business, but one would hope that they are actually getting PAID for being part of IDG's advertising program. And of course there should be disclosure so that visitors to Slashdot realize they are reading advertisements and not an article submitted by a "real" user...

Re:More ADVERTS from IDG...

[Bearhouse]

Dupe?

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=290119&cid=204 98825

But for once, an INTERESTING one. Keep up the good work, Frosty

Re:More ADVERTS from IDG...

[gladish]

I just realized that I'm reading something written by someone named Frosty Piss about two guys named coondoggie and inkslinger.

Re:More ADVERTS from IDG...

[rhizome]

I suppose that's their business, but one would hope that they are actually getting PAID for being part of IDG's advertising program. And of course there should be disclosure so that visitors to Slashdot realize they are reading advertisements and not an article submitted by a "real" user...

What if it's IDG who is getting paid by Slashdot to provide content? Much more likely a scenario...

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[temcat]

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.

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[mhall119]

ZFS is licensed under Sun's CDDL license, which is derived from the Mozilla Public License and is OSI approved, but is not GPL-compatible. A lot of "free software" isn't GPL-compatible, but that doesn't make it any less free. A user-space port has been done using FUSE, and ZFS is available on the BSD's.

This suit is more pathetic than funny

[Morgaine]

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.

Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny

[pegr]

The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson'.
 
Hey, didn't you help fund SCO's anti-linux FUDfest? Eff you!

Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny

[Just Some Guy]

And fire all their lawyers, or at least give them something useful to do like bring in the coffee.

Yeah, turning the legal department loose on Java will certainly improve the situation.

Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny

[BrainInAJar]

No, they bought some drivers so that they could incorporate them in to the x86 version of Solaris

And I think that was McNealy anyways, not Schwartz

Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny

[BrainInAJar]

yes you did.

Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny

[sunwukong]

Oh, I dunno -- I've read both legal briefs and code commentary and sometimes it's hard to say which is the more obfuscated.

Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny

[pegr]

No, they bought some drivers so that they could incorporate them in to the x86 version of Solaris

And I think that was McNealy anyways, not Schwartz
 
So you say the beast has many heads, and some of the heads you like and others you don't... Funny, I don't like the entire beast...

Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny

[BrainInAJar]

No, I'm saying Sun's under new leadership, and the new leadership is turning Sun in to the most open-source friendly company in the world

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[quantum bit]

Would they? How do you figure that one? I think that in theory, if everything ran under a single JVM, most of the disadvantages of Java wouldn't be an issue. A big one is JVM startup and loading time for all the base classes that everything uses. Another is the fact that Java does its own internal memory management and tends to grab a big chunk of memory from the OS and never release it, even if the Java program destroys the objects. It won't allocate more memory from the OS if it can re-use it for other Java objects, but since it never shrinks the heap nothing else can use that memory and it ends up getting swapped out and/or increasing memory pressure.

i.e. the biggest problem with Java is that it doesn't play well with other (native) processes. .NET has the same problem, which is why MS is pushing for more and more applications to use it (so they can share the overhead and won't seem so bloated).

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[quantum bit]

But anyway, isn't ZFS under a license that can't be used in the Linux kernel, anyway? So it's incompatible with the GPL, not really 'free software'? <troll>That's the GPL's fault for being so narrow-minded, it has nothing to do with "free software". Other Free software, like FreeBSD for instance, has no problem using CDDL code.</troll>

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[AKAImBatman]

You would have thought that they would have had some internal communication, and, you know, improved Java.

Astounding idea. That must be why Sun, you know, improved Java. In case you haven't noticed, the Java we use today has everything from gaming services (OpenGL, OpenAL, 2D hardware acceleration, JavaSound, etc.) to nearly every Desktop service you could possibly want (Native L&F with actual hooks into the OS, Cross-platform systray support, Webstart Program Installer w/Program Menu integration, Full Printer APIs, etc.) on top of its already popular "Enterprise" services like Database, Networking, and XML parsing.

How do you figure that one?

Quantum bit already did a superb job addressing this one.

NetApp is not the SCO here, Sun is.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[wytcld]

Look at the facts: it was Sun that originally brought the specter of patents to the table on this

Look at the fine article, Mr. Frosty. This is exactly the "fact" Sun's CEO disputes.

What we appear to know from the opposing CEO, that Sun's CEO doesn't respond to here, is that both ZFS and NetApps' file system use a structure that NetApps has filed a patent on. So is the patent valid? Does Sun infringe? Does Sun in turn - as the NetApps CEO hints - hold patents that NetApps wants to this threat as leverage to cross-license? Ah, but Sun's CEO says Sun is happy to license the Sun patents NetApps wants - just doesn't want to sell them outright. So is this an attempt to force Sun to sell those outright in order to avoid the mess of fighting NetApps' patent claim?

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[mhall119]

By the way when was Java fully Open Sourced? Both the Java compiler and virtual machine have been open sourced. All of Sun's J2ME implementation is open sourced, all of Sun's J2EE implementation is open sourced, and most of Sun's J2SE implementation (all that they have ownership of) has been open sourced.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[jadavis]

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.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[Alioth]

Yes. They supported SCO.

Sun seem to have a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde personality when it comes to Free software - one moment, they are trying to destroy some of it, and the next moment, they are doing something positively great and beneficial (such as moving Java to the GPL).

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[Courageous]

Sure they would. Because modern desktop Java is perceived as "slow" primarily because of slow VM launch.

Well. You're right about that; as soon as you have a core JVM going and brokering everything you are basically fine.

But way back then, Swing was really slow. I.e., there were not one but two reasons for the perception of Java's slowness: 1) JVM startup, and 2) a VERY slow GUI. There were some issues with I/O as well (not unrelated), that have since been solved with the nio "new io" library.

Even today, Swing is not the fastest thing, it's just that modern computers have caught up. I.e., tis "fast enough".

C//

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[ErikZ]

OpenOffice alone clears them in my books.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Allow me to retort

[Lucas123]

First, I don't have anything approaching a 100% acceptance rate. The vast majority of my submissions are rejected, but you'd have to take the time to look at my profile to know what I've submitted. Second, I submit stories from lots of different news sites. Because I edit for Computerworld (and I'm open about my association what that 40-year-old pub -- it's my homepage) doesn't make me some sort of evil shill. I'm proud of my magazine and the reporters here. Why shouldn't I post what I consider the best and most appropriate stories around the web to be read? Who cares where a story comes from if it's good? I have to say, Slashdot is the most democratic news site around. Acceptance is totally based on whether the story is voted up by Slashdot readers through Firehose, unlike a site like Digg.com, which is based on how large a social network you create in order to garner votes.

Re:Allow me to retort

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the editors still, ultimately, pick which stories they want. The firehose is just a suggestion.

Re:Allow me to retort

[kaffiene]

Bullshit. The editors still pick what they want.

A Democracy is what Slashdot *should* be.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[swordgeek]

"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.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[sconeu]

Sun paid SCO as part of the effort to open source Solaris.

See here.

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[perlchild]

Considering Sun started as a bsd-derivative(SunOS) I never understood why they needed their own license... All the moreso with Apple's bsd successes....

How restrictive a license is always depends on who you apply it to... The original software author? A contributer? A redistributor? And in the case of Sun, they appear on one, restrictive, side on one product, and on the other, less restricted side, in another. So you'd have to qualify just which Sun you mean...

Re:Ironic-- if true-- given NetApp's FOSS foundati

[Guy Harris]

I vaguely remember that NetApp machines run a stripped down version of BSD.

Data ONTAP (dating back to NetApp's first product, which means "before the marketing department came up with the name 'Data ONTAP'") isn't, and never was, a stripped-down version of BSD. It incorporated the BSD networking stack, and some BSD commands, but incorporated them into an OS that ran all processes in the same address space, in kernel mode, using message-passing.

The newer ONTAP GX is based on FreeBSD, as noted by another poster.

pot, kettle

[m2943]

Open source usage of ZFS is no threat to NetApp as long as Sun persists in making the ZFS license incompatible with Linux.

And given Schwartz's history of lies and misrepresentation related to open source, he really isn't the one to complain about this sort of thing.

Re:pot, kettle

[ChrisA90278]

"Open source usage of ZFS is no threat to NetApp as long as Sun persists in making the ZFS license incompatible with Linux."

So what about Linux. If you want to build an Open Source storage appliance I think the way to go would be to run ZFS under BSD UNIX.

I think NetApp is also worried about Apple. Apple has ported ZFS to Mac OS X and Apple does have some nice storage products that are cheaper than NetApp's. Wait 'till these run ZFS.

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[BrainInAJar]

SunOS 5 ( aka Solaris ), the current version, isn't a BSD operating system at all and it never has been, it's a SysV operating system.

And Sun seems to have wanted a licence to keep the code free like the GPL does, but without polluting code that tries to link to it, like the GPL does

there's more to it

[m2943]

Are you suggesting that non-GPL software isn't free? Given the nature of the GPL and it's relative restrictive nature on derivative work, I would venture to say that it is less Free than the CDDL.

An anarchy is also "more free" than a democracy, but people living in an anarchy have less real freedom than in a democracy. By analogy, merely because a license lets the indivdidual do more doesn't mean that its users end up having more freedom as a whole.

But that is really irrelevant in the case of ZFS anyway. Sun picked the CDDL because it's incompatible with the Linux kernel license (something that the Linux kernel developers simply cannot change). Sun may, in fact, republish ZFS under the GPLv3, which would make it free software even by strict standards, but the motivation for the choice for Sun would still be to interfere with the development of free software as a whole.

Re:there's more to it

[LuSiDe]

Sun may, in fact, republish ZFS under the GPLv3, which would make it free software even by strict standards.

I'd say FSF and OSI certification are as strict as you can get. The other strict standards are those from various license zeals (e.g. GPL zealots).

Re:there's more to it

[alsta]

"Sun picked the CDDL because it's incompatible with the Linux kernel license (something that the Linux kernel developers simply cannot change)."

That's borderline cynical to say. You assume with this statement that Sun deliberately picked a license to be incompatible with the GPL, for the purpose of disallowing works published under it to be integrated with the Linux Kernel tarball:

http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/faq/licensing_ faq/

If you wanted a copyleft license, why didn't you just use the GPL or LGPL?

We needed an open source license that allowed files released under the license to be linked with files released under other licenses. While a license like LGPL would allow this for dynamically-linked code, we also needed to be able to release software that statically links source files available under different licenses. In addition, we wanted to allow others to add externsions to OpenSolaris with different license terms. This was only possible under a license like the MPL; however, we could not use the MPL because it is not a "template" license allowing reuse by others. Consequently, we crafted a variant of the MPL, taking the opportunity to make it a template license as a step towards reducing license proliferation for others finding themselves in a similar position.

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[ckaminski]

Not for nothing, but with modern memory management subsystems, it doesn't matter how much memory you allocate to a process, but how big your working set size is. If your JVM uses 250MB to start up, but needs only 25MB to run your webserver, then that is all that is going to be resident in active RAM (eventually).

Startup and paging costs kill you, but you pay the paging cost anyway if you use lots of memory, or you have to *HAVE* lots of memory to avoid it.

not quite

[m2943]

A lot of "free software" isn't GPL-compatible,

You're confusing "free software" and "open source software". The FSF defines what free software is because they came up with the term. With very few exceptions, software that isn't GPL compatible also isn't free software, although it may be open source software.

However, the problem with ZFS is more specific: Sun chose the ZFS license deliberately to be incompatible with the Linux kernel and to hurt Linux. In fact, Sun may even license ZFS under the Linux-incompatible GPLv3 license. Sun has also released Java under a GPL license but is cleverly retaining control of the development process, mostly because they didn't like all the other free and open source Java implementations that were emerging and were hoping to put a stop to them that way and retain control.

Sun is skillfully using free software and open source in an attempt to maintain proprietary control. I don't think it will work out in the long run, and I don't think ZFS matters anyway, but arguing, like many people do, about "how free" a piece of software is is useless in isolation.

Re:not quite

[Anonymous Coward]

The FSF defines what free software is because they came up with the term. With very few exceptions, software that isn't GPL compatible also isn't free software, although it may be open source software.

Sigh.

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/

Re:not quite

[mhall119]

I hope somebody mods your post "funny", because I don't think you'll get "insightful".

The FSF defines what free software is because they came up with the term. With very few exceptions, software that isn't GPL compatible also isn't free software, although it may be open source software. The FSF maintains a list of GPL incompatible licenses that it considers "free software", CDDL is on that list.

Sun chose the ZFS license deliberately to be incompatible with the Linux kernel and to hurt Linux. Sun has always preferred the CDDL, it has nothing to do with trying to be incompatible with the Linux kernel. OpenSolaris is CDDL, so it would only make sense for it's flag-ship file system to be CDDL as well.

Sun has also released Java under a GPL license but is cleverly retaining control of the development process, mostly because they didn't like all the other free and open source Java implementations that were emerging and were hoping to put a stop to them that way and retain control. How do you maintain control of the development of a GPL'd work? If Sun is in such control, why is RedHat doing the most OpenJDK development at the moment? Why would Sun open-source their TCK if they wanted to stop the development of open source implementations not under their control? Do you have any idea what is going on in the open source Java community, or are you just talking out your ass?

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[m2943]

As it happens, Sun chose to assist the GNOME project and made that their primary desktop. Then they rebranded it as the "Java Desktop System" in one of the most confusing brand changes in history. And that is where we sit today.

I think "confusing" is a rather charitable term for it. Sun proclaims that Java is the future for GUI development, yet they have been incapable of producing a usable Java desktop. What do they do instead? They take a high quality open source desktop that has nothing to do with Java and stick the Java label onto it, thereby creating the false impression that Java is suitable for desktop usage.

Rebranding Gnome as the "Java Desktop System" is a fraud, plain and simple. It's just one example of the kinds of games and abuses Sun engages in with respect to open source.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[SpaceLifeForm]

BS.

Darl McBride, SCO's CEO, [redacted] confirmed that SCO believes the license conveyed the right to Sun to open source Solaris.

Darl, believes.

He believes a lot of things, none have been proven true.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[Creepy Crawler]

Woot!

Sun Yellow Pages....until they were sued by "Yellow Pages".

Damn lawyers.

EMC says: Bye-Bye NetApp

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Ironic-- if true-- given NetApp's FOSS foundati

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, NetApp has contributed back to FreeBSD, albeit unofficially. They've done a lot of work in improving its multiprocessor support, for example.

Also, I believe the chief developer of Linux's NFS client is on NetApp's payroll.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,,

[renoX]

I don't know if there was a ban on Java at Sun or not, what I know is that for Solaris9, they replaced the GUI of their Solaris admin tools by Java GUIs which *sucked* hard: lots of spinning wheel, slow as molasse, etc.

Apparently at least for Solaris9 (don't know if this has improved afterwards), even Sun doesn't know how to make good GUI apps in Java!

Re:Java Applets

[AKAImBatman]

For example, the one that made me choke on my coffee was the "Java MP3 Player" that got written, where they could just have shipped something like xmms.

No one really "wrote" that for JDS. They just repackaged the Java Media Player they already had on hand for their Video APIs. They bundled it with CDE as well, so it wasn't anything new. You might not have noticed it before if you skipped Solaris 8.

Re:Ironic-- if true-- given NetApp's FOSS foundati

[IvyKing]

Also, I believe the chief developer of Linux's NFS client is on NetApp's payroll.

Don't know much about the NFS client for Linux, but most of what I've heard about Linux's NFS server is that it sucks.

Re: who I boycott.

[CodeShark]

Well, I have to use MS-Office, etc. at work. But none of my deployed websites for my customers use Java, and OpenOffice is already OS licensed -- which excludes it from my boycott list. But I won't go to something with ZFS until the patent mess is out of the way.

Re:Ironic-- if true-- given NetApp's FOSS foundati

[pedantic bore]

A lot of NetApp engineers are posting on this subject and defending their company with spreading FUDD.

Thank goodness nobody from Sun would ever think of spreading FUDD!

Sorry, haven't really noticed. Other than a lot of people who haven't even read the entire summary, much less the deposition, most people seem to be trying to keep things rational.

Re:Just another SCO wanabe?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta love the "what haveyou done for me this week?" attitude.

Remember OpenOffice? Yeah, Sun donated that code.

Remember Java? Yeah, that's open too.

OpenSolaris? Ditto. And let's not forget that SunOS was originally BSD-based to begin with.

OpenSPARC? That's right, they've even opened up their chip specs and design.

NetBeans? Yep, also OSS.

PostgreSQL? Gnome? Mozilla? Yes, Sun has their hands in there, too.

Xorg? Guess who employs a bunch of their devs?

They even ship Linux, for fuck's sake.

I'd argue that Sun is, along with SGI and IBM in fact one of the best friends Open Source has ever had.

"Solaris is only headed that way because Sun sees the end of their proprietary money model, not because of some great love for Open Source."

Of course, this couldn't possibly have anything to do with Ian Murdock joining Sun. The guy founded Debian GNU/Linux, after all, but no, no love for OSS there, just sheer desperation, right?

OpenSolaris went open not out of desperation. Solaris would have been just as awesome and just as successful had it remained closed. They just wanted to make it open. I think the GNU crowd is just a little bitter because the OpenSolaris community opted to use CDDL expressly due to it being incompatible with the GPL. Well news flash, There's more to OSS than just GNU.

bullshit

[m2943]

We needed an open source license that allowed files released under the license to be linked with files released under other licenses.

There are many licenses that would have satisfied all of Sun's requirement and still been compatible with the GPLv2. The provisions that make the CDDL incompatible are obscure, technical, and largely useless. Have a look here for an explanation.

No, the only explanation why Sun picked a license with GPLv2 incompatible clauses is because they deliberately wanted to be GPLv2 incompatible.

stop making things up

[m2943]

The FSF maintains a list of GPL incompatible licenses that it considers "free software", CDDL is on that list.

I didn't say anything to the contrary. I simply pointed out that people shouldn't confuse "free software" with "open source software".

Sun has always preferred the CDDL, it has nothing to do with trying to be incompatible with the Linux kernel. OpenSolaris is CDDL, so it would only make sense for it's flag-ship file system to be CDDL as well.

You're misrepresenting the history. Yes, ZFS is CDDL because OpenSolaris is CDDL. But Sun didn't first pick the CDDL and then used the CDDL out of consistency for ZFS, they picked CDDL for OpenSolaris and ZFS was simply part of that. And there is no reasonable explanation for why Sun picked the CDDL over other licenses other than that they wanted OpenSolaris code as a whole (including ZFS) to be incompatible with Linux. The changes to make the CDDL into a GPLv2 compatible license would be trivial and of no consequence to Sun, but Sun chose to have those clauses in there.

How do you maintain control of the development of a GPL'd work?

The way Sun does it: the JDK is dual licensed, and most customers continue to use Java under a non-GPL license. Sun also maintains control through the TCK and their ownership of many of the documents defining Java.

Why would Sun open-source their TCK if they wanted to stop the development of open source implementations not under their control?

Sun has not open sourced their TCK. Quite to the contrary, they have been trying to use the TCK to maintain control of Java and exclude alternative implementations. This has been a major dispute between Sun and Apache:

http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t94330.html

http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/m92169688.htm l#92169688

Now, tell us, are you simply so uninformed that you really believe that Sun has open sourced the TCK, or are you deliberately trying to deceive us?

Re:stop making things up

[mhall119]

The way Sun does it: the JDK is dual licensed, and most customers continue to use Java under a non-GPL license. Sun also maintains control through the TCK and their ownership of many of the documents defining Java. Many projects are dual-licensed, what of it? Most customers continue to use the non-GPL J2SE because the GPL'd version isn't ready yet. Many people are currently using Sun's open source J2ME and J2EE implementations. Sun controls the TCK because that is the standard by which you can qualify to use the Java trademark, and Sun controls the Java trademark to ensure compatibility between Java implementations. However, there is nothing stopping Redhat from forking OpenJDK, making whatever changes they want, then distributing it as "IcedTea".

Sun has not open sourced their TCK. Quite to the contrary, they have been trying to use the TCK to maintain control of Java and exclude alternative implementations. This has been a major dispute between Sun and Apache: Sorry, I was unclear (and a bit confused myself it seems). Sun is making their TCK freely available to any implementation or derivation of the GPL'd OpenJDK code. They have released their TCK test harness under GPLv2, but not the TCK tests themselves. I believe that a TCK license has been given to the Apache group as well, either for free or paid for through a sponsor or scholarship.

And there is no reasonable explanation for why Sun picked the CDDL over other licenses other than that they wanted OpenSolaris code as a whole (including ZFS) to be incompatible with Linux. I can think of many reasons why Sun would want to use CDDL over GPL, other than wanting to be incompatible with Linux. Mostly it has to do with remaining business friendly, allowing other distributors, like IBM or HP, to incorporate proprietary code (drivers) into their distribution of Solaris (both ship Solaris on top of their own hardware). Also, it lets the BSD's use Solaris code (they have already ported dtrace and ZFS), which they couldn't do if Sun licensed them under the GPL. If they chose GPL, then they would only benefit Linux. So it's not that they didn't want to be compatible with Linux, it's that they wanted to be compatible with everyone else.

The changes to make the CDDL into a GPLv2 compatible license would be trivial and of no consequence to Sun, but Sun chose to have those clauses in there. Trivial and of no consequence? Oh do tell, what changes are needed?

Re:stop making things up

[m2943]

Trivial and of no consequence? Oh do tell, what changes are needed?

Any of the GPL-compatible licenses on this page would do: http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/

I can think of many reasons why Sun would want to use CDDL over GPL

I have no problems with Sun picking a more liberal license than the GPL. But among the many licenses that are more liberal, they handcrafted one that was GPL-incompatible.

Sun is making their TCK freely available to any implementation or derivation of the GPL'd OpenJDK code.

Quite right, which answers your question of how Sun keeps control over Java and the OpenJDK: they control the TCK, they control who gets to use it, and they control their own dual-licensed implementation.

Many projects are dual-licensed, what of it?

You wanted an answer to the question of "How do you maintain control of the development of a GPL'd work?" This is one of several control mechanisms: Sun develops Java under a dual license and has a large non-GPL userbase. That makes forking the Java JDK unrealistic and pretty much ensures continued control by Sun.

Sorry, I was unclear (and a bit confused myself it seems)

You were quite clear, you were simply didn't know the facts. And that's my overall point: the details matter a great deal in evaluating what open source related activities by companies mean. Just because Sun releases a lot of code under the GPL and talks a lot about open source doesn't mean that they actually support the kind of open source that has actually brought us Linux and gcc.

Channel is the problem

[igb]

``I think NetApp is also worried about Apple. '' Apple don't have the channel or service partners today. It would take them years to develop those, and the enterprise storage market is a scary place to learn those lessons. How would Apple offer 24x7 2hr engineer on site service? How would they convince their existing channel to get involved in what are often twelve-month sales cycles even for established kit?

I'm an Auspex customer from back before NetApp even existed, and buying that (14GB! $200K! ah, the early 90s) was an eighteen month exercise. I'm currently getting my big black NAS fix from Pillar (great company, good box): that was a two year sales cycle from initial approach to final acceptance. In both cases, the vendor is fronting up resource, loan machines and development effort, and the prospect can walk away at any time. Channel willing to do that isn't Apple's forte.

NetApp had all these problems when they started up --- I think the first one we bought had a spares kit and a good luck note, and I bought it very much on the strength all all the ex-Auspex guys (and Guys). But times were different: they had a compelling product, the market was growing explosively, Auspex were busy blowing their feet off with automatic weapons and Sun weren't seriously in storage. Today, a new entrant into NAS has to contend with NetApp, EMC and Sun at tier one, then Pillar, 3Par, BlueArc and all the rest at tier two. Apple's branding is an actual negative in that space, and there's a lot of competition and not a lot of loose margin. Hard.

ian

Re:Channel is the problem

[Thundersnatch]

Actually, don't neglect the convergence of the NAS and SAN markets. This puts Hitachi and IBM into the mix at tier 1 as well, along with players like LeftHand and EqualLogic as well. It's a very crowded space.

Actually, I think the formerly-pure-play iSCSI providers like EqualLogic and LeftHand have the most interesting products, with "stackable" scalability that's diffucult to match with a dedicated controller topology. But their services organizations aren't yet there compared with the Tier-1 vendors. I speak from experience. The gear itself works well, though.

Re:Daniel Phillips

[macshit]

Daniel first announced his Tux2 filesystem to the world in 2000. Makes you go "Hmmmmm" doesn't it?

No, it makes me go "Sigh, another case of our broken patent system (and the greedy corporations who abuse it) stifling progress rather than helping it."

Re:Of course Schwartz would say that.

[PFAK]

CDDL is more "Free software" than GPL ever will be ..

Re:EMC says: Bye-Bye NetApp

[pazu]

Yeah, but if ZFS use spreads out, software integration will be a non-issue an performance will be as good, if not better, than proprietary solutions. This will create an open market of companies offering professional support services. NetApp and EMC will lose their upper hand (specially EMC, with that horrible customer support).

Re: who I boycott.

[heybo]

Hey dude ZFS IS! Open Sourced. This crap is over Sun open sourcing ZSF. You might want to check too over 25% of your code base in GNU/Linux came from Sun. You shouldn't bad mouth your friends.

Re: bad mouthing friends

[CodeShark]

Have I spoken against Sun's code or against the legal system that results in these weird patent fights?

One of the reasons that my sig states that Open Source isn't the only answer but is often the best one -- and what I have been pointing at in this thread is that to the greatest extent possible I avoid code I can't prove to be untainted, i.e. GPL or fully Open Sourced code that the community has already basically approved of. I think that this is probably the single most overlooked and important part of the OS movement -- many eyes prevent many mistakes -- including for the most part at this point in time, patent-encumbered code.