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Oracle, NetApp Drop ZFS Patent Suit
An anonymous reader writes "It seems Oracle and NetApp have kissed and made up over the ZFS patent lawsuit. Before Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, NetApp sued Sun claiming ZFS infringed on its patents. Sun later sued NetApp back. From today, all is forgotten and Oracle and NetApp are friends. NetApp CEO Tom Georgens even said the two companies have shared a 'common vision' focused on providing solutions that reduce IT cost and complexity. Both companies now want collaboration between them to continue."
Oh, don't throw me into that briar patch!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Well, you should. NetApp deals strongly with FreeBSD, and it is my understanding that they use it as part of their platform, which is a good bit of the reason why FreeBSD has had ZFS support for so long. In the Linux world, battles over patent and licensing issues with regards to ZFS is what has kept it from being able to enjoy native support. Oracle runs its own Linux distribution based off of RHEL, so being able to make sure that the coast is clear for them to integrated ZFS into Linux is a big step. This is probably part of the reason why the planned native ZFS module to be released in a few weeks isn't already being sued into oblivion.
You may not care about the corporate fortunes of NetApp or Oracle, but this has the potential to turn out into good news for lots of FLOSS-minded people.
that NetApps (and everybody else) are a little more scared of their new Oracle overlords than of geeky, hunky-dory Sun?
Prediction: Google and Oracle are going to patch things up like nothing ever happened. You heard it here.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Oracle and NetApp have long, close ties through their customers (many, many Oracle customers run their databases on NetApp gear; it's one of the platforms Oracle specifically recommends). This lawsuit basically pitted the customers against themselves, which never works out well for the vendors.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
Probably, Larry just got around to noticing that NetApp had patent-trolled Oracle's new acquisition and he had Oracle's lawyers send NetApp an offer they couldn't refuse: drop your suit and we'll drop our counterclaims, otherwise we'll bring Oracle's entire IP portfolio into play and totally horse fuck you.
Let's not all lose sight of the fact that two big companies coming to an agreement, whether explicitly or implicitly, not to sue each other over patents does not help small companies, individuals, or Free Software/Open Source.
Small companies, individuals, and Free Software/Open Source in general does not have a large enough patent chest to get the same kind of, "I won't sue you for patent infringement, if you don't sue me for patent infringement," kind of a deal.
I have some nice swap real estate to sell them...
Yeah, once they find out they can only inhabit as much as they can page in at once they're going to be pissed.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Hitachi dropped ORCL so ORCL has nothing in the way of real storage equip to sell or resell.
You seem to have this reversed. Oracle terminated their Hitachi agreement when they finalized the Sun deal to focus on Sun storage products. For high end storage they may need to find a replacement, but from a pure business standpoint it makes sense for Oracle to try to focus on solutions using their own hardware.
What are you talking about? Oracle is all about reducing cost. Once they've got you locked in to their ecosystem, the cost of sales and marketing alone, not to mention support, goes down considerably.
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