On 01/09/12 21:45, Dmitrijs Ledkovs wrote: > On 1 September 2012 19:02, Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez <clo...@igalia.com> > wrote: >> Package: wnpp >> Owner: Carlos Alberto Lopez Perez <clo...@igalia.com> >> Severity: wishlist >> X-Debbugs-CC: debian-de...@lists.debian.org >> >> * Package name : zfs-linux >> Version : 0.6.0 >> Upstream Author : Brian Behlendorf <behlendo...@llnl.gov> >> * URL : http://zfsonlinux.org/ >> * License : CDDL >> Programming Lang: C >> Description : The native Linux kernel port of the ZFS filesystem. >> >> ZFS is an advanced file system and volume manager which was originally >> developed for Solaris. It provides a number of advanced features like >> snapshots, clones, live integrity checksums, deduplication, compression >> and much more. The port to the Linux kernel includes a functional and >> stable SPA, DMU, ZVOL and ZFS Posix Layer (ZPL). >> . >> This package contains the source code for the native implementation of ZFS >> for the Linux Kernel, which can be used with DKMS, so that local kernel >> modules are automatically built and installed every time the kernel packages >> are upgraded. >> . >> This package also contains the user space utilities needed to manage ZFS. >> > > If packaged properly, I am sure many people will find this useful. > > The missing revisions / functionality are: > > 29 RAID-Z/mirror hybrid allocator. > 30 ZFS encryption. > 31 improved 'zfs list' performance. > 32 One MB block support > 33 Improved share support > > I do have (personal?!) concerns about the ZFS future. After the zpool > version 28, no more source code was release by oracle (please correct > me if I am wrong). Are the specs released for the later zpool > versions? As it is now, all implementations are incomplete in > comparison with Oracle's implementation. And if no specs are > available, the open source / linux implementations are going to become > more and more incomplete in the future.
This is true, the latest release of the ZFS source code is the zpool version 28. After Oracle took over Sun, they turned Solaris into a closed-source operating system effectively killing OpenSolaris. However, several open source projects (OpenIndiana and Illumos) forked OpenSolaris and continued its development in parallel. Also FreeBSD added official support for ZFS on their Kernel. So, while is true that possibly we can't expect Oracle supporting further development for the open-source ZFS, we can (and should) expect that this development effort continues in the open backed by the several open source efforts behind this (zfsonlinux, freebsd, illumos, openindiana, smartos, nexenta ...). There is already a working group composed by some of the former communities working on further development of the open source version of ZFS [1] About the ZFS specifications for the Oracle's zpool greater than 28, I don't know if they made this documents public (probably they didn't) Anyway this ZFS working group is developing the open source ZFS version independently from Oracle, so I guess (not sure about this) that the last ZFS version compatible between all the ZFS ports and Oracle/Solaris ZFS will be zfs=5,zpool=28. The ZFS working group has already shared a proposal for allocating zfs/zpool version numbers that allows the different parties to add features to ZFS independently without conflicts between them [2] For example, Illumos released a few months ago a new version of ZFS (zpool=5000) which added support for "asynchronous destruction of ZFS datasets" and "SPA versioning with zfs feature flags" [3], and the FreeBSD folks are already merging this in their port [4]. Its expected that the zfsonlinux project would also merge this changes on their port [5]. Also, ZFS in its current state (zfs=5 / zpool=28) is very stable and more feature-wise than any of the other filesystems available for Linux. Furthermore none of the features added from [29-33] is a killer feature, for encryption we already have LUKS/dm-crypt on Linux (you can just build a zfs volume on top of a LUKS/dm-crypt volume). > > What is the status on trademarks? Can we use the name "zfs"? For > example, drdb trademark is actively being enforced. > We already have in the archives the following packages using the zfs name: http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=zfs&searchon=names&suite=all§ion=all So I don't see any problem there. If Oracle decide to enforce the zfs trademark we simply can rename the package and problem solved. Also, as I can see, Oracle not longer holds the ZFS trademark since they abandoned the application for it [6] > While the future of alternative zfs implementations does look gloom, I > do think zfs (-like) implementations would be useful on linux and in > debian. > I also think that can be useful, ZFS has many nice features that would boost Linux and Debian possibilities. Regards! -------- [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/444882/ http://lanyrd.com/2012/illumos-user-group-meetup-january/smxwd/ http://blog.delphix.com/csiden/files/2012/01/ZFS_Feature_Flags.pdf http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?t=27159 [2] http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/2011-May/048514.html [3] http://blog.vx.sk/archives/35-New-features-in-open-source-ZFS.html https://github.com/illumos/illumos-gate/commits/master/usr/src/uts/common/sys/fs/zfs.h [4] http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.os.freebsd.devel.file-systems/15125 [5] https://github.com/zfsonlinux/zfs/issues/778 [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZFS http://tdrapi.uspto.gov/ts/cd/casestatus/sn85194050/content.html
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