Sun To Seek Injunction, Damages Against NetApp

Zeddicus_Z writes to note that Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has outlined Sun's response to Network Appliance's recent patent infringement lawsuit over ZFS: "As a part of this suit, we are requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of their filer products from the marketplace, and are examining the original NFS license — on which Network Appliance was started. In addition... we will be going after sizable monetary damages. And I am committing that Sun will donate half of those proceeds to the leading institutions promoting free software and patent reform... [Regarding NetApp's demands in order to drop its existing case against Sun:] ...[to] unfree ZFS, to retract it from the free software community, and to limit ZFS's allowable field of use to computers — and to forbid its use in storage devices."

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short summary for those interested

[swordgeek]

Here's the short summary: It's a biggest dick war between two idiotic ego-driven CEOs, that's gotten out of hand.

If you dig far enough, NetApp asked Sun about disclosure on patents. Sun replied, NetApp said that's not good enough, Sun said, bite us, NetApp said we'll sue, Sun said we'll give you the info you want if you agree not to sue and pay us $36mil (or thereabouts), NetApp sued, Sun countersued, and so forth.

I use NetApp and Sun gear daily, and have done for years (decades?) now. Both are pretty much tops in their fields, both have some quirks, and both stand on their own without competing badly with the other (honestly, when was the last time Sun had a non-laughable disk storage system?). However, I'm sick of that pony-tailed bean-counting pinhead Schwartz, I'm sick of Dave Hitz "master of lying and crocodile tears," and I'm sick of fuckheads like this destroying good companies for the sake of their pathetic egos. Let's toss 'em in a room with their lawyers and weld the doors shut. The industry would be better off.