Did Apple kill ZFS?

[nuckinfutz]

They've had years already.

They are not even close to rushing.

Snails are moving faster.

Sun couldn't even boot from ZFS when Leopard was announced. That should tell you something.

Linux is working on BTFS so obviously their incumbunet file systems could use a little sprucing up.

Nah ..I don't think Apple's all that behind. They recognize they aren't an Enterprise company.

 

[Infrared]

Sun couldn't even boot from ZFS when Leopard was announced. That should tell you something.

Linux is working on BTFS so obviously their incumbunet file systems could use a little sprucing up.

A slight difference between needing to be spruced up and being
"utter crap".

Linus Torvalds

On the other hand, (I’ve found) OS X in some ways is actually worse than
Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which
is scary.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/technology/q-and-a-with-linus-torvalds/2008/02/05/1202090403120.html

 

[nuckinfutz]

A slight difference between needing to be spruced up and being
"utter crap".

Yeah Linus really tore it up with Transmeta huh?

 

[DoFoT9]

interesting it does seem to have dissapeared, it must have proved much harder then they first thought! cant wait until it gets implemented though!

 

[belvdr]

Why do you think that would that be a problem? They already do that for the rest of darwin... including the HFS+ filesystem and all the other filesystems OS X supports.

I didn't say that would be a problem; I was pointing out they would need to release that code.

 

[foidulus]

You have to wonder if its a victim of scheduling

Apple set a really ambitious date for the client release of the OS, and that may have been what killed ZFS. Apple doesn't want to release the client version without the server, and the server certainly isn't important enough to Apple to hold up the client release, so features had to be cut and on the top of that list, ZFS

 

[Infrared]

Apple set a really ambitious date for the client release of the OS, and that may have been what killed ZFS. Apple doesn't want to release the client version without the server, and the server certainly isn't important enough to Apple to hold up the client release, so features had to be cut and on the top of that list, ZFS

That's speculative, but certainly possible. Here's another possibility:
OS X for the desktop (as opposed to iPhone) is low down Apple's
agenda. Apple do not have sufficient people working on it to push
through something like a new filesystem implementation.

 

[nuckinfutz]

That's speculative, but certainly possible. Here's another possibility:
OS X for the desktop (as opposed to iPhone) is low down Apple's
agenda. Apple do not have sufficient people working on it to push
through something like a new filesystem implementation.

How many people do you think it takes to push a new fs? Apple hired Domininic Giampaolo 7 years ago. He and a fairly small group of engineers wrote the Befs filesystem and did a good job. I would not be surprised to see Apple deliver their own filesystem.

It is possible that Apple doesn't have the staffing needed but that's one possibility out of an infinite amount of different possibilities.

The probablility of Apple neglecting Mac OS X in lieu of OS X for iPhone is low IMO. Both OS overlap in areas and some projects start on the iPhone and matriculate over the Mac (i.e Quicktime X) and some projects start on Mac OS and move to the iPhone (Core Data)

It'll be interesting to see if Apple hops back on the ZFS train or takes other options.

 

[Infrared]

The probablility of Apple neglecting Mac OS X in lieu of OS X for iPhone is low IMO.

Already happened once...

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/official-apple-delays-leopard-iphone-is-priority-1-251911.php

 

[nuckinfutz]

Already happened once...

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/official-apple-delays-leopard-iphone-is-priority-1-251911.php

By golly it has!

Ya know I see the error of my ways. It's clear to me now that Apple devoting resources to the iPhone to ensure a stable premier launch should define how we view the importance of iPhone and Mac product lines. This of course despite a successful launch of SDK 2 and this year a successful launch of SDK 3.0 and Snow Leopard WWDC Preview.

Silly me.

 

[Infrared]

By golly it has!

Ya know I see the error of my ways. It's clear to me now that Apple devoting resources to the iPhone to ensure a stable premier launch should define how we view the importance of iPhone and Mac product lines. This of course despite a successful launch of SDK 2 and this year a successful launch of SDK 3.0 and Snow Leopard WWDC Preview.

Silly me.

Filed under "blather".

 

[nick9191]

Only thing I wish they'd fix is the ability to run one application multiple times. It's a hack to get it to work. Any other OS post-1996 can do this, except OS X.

Did they ever fix the refresh issue in Finder where disk space and such was not updated?

Open Applications. Right click on desired app. Duplicate. Open both.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Filed under "blather".

au contraire

In the 3 major revisions to iPhone SDK Apple has only needed to delay Mac OS X one which means they are %66 likely to deliver everything on time and full featured with the momentum swinging upwards.

 

[foidulus]

Open Applications. Right click on desired app. Duplicate. Open both.

The easier thing is just to go into Terminal and launch from there(or wrap a simple shell script in Automator if you want to be able to launch from Finder)

The executable in every non-Java native app is (almost) always the same:
/Applications/(app name).app/Contents/MacOS/(app name)

To launch 2 Safaris:
Open up the normal safari, then in terminal type:

/Applicatons/Safari.app/Contents/MacOS/Safari &

(ignore the warnings it gives you)

voila! You can open as many instances of the app as you desire doing that, though keep in mind some apps are smart enough to detect if there is another instance of them running. For instance Remote Desktop won't let you launch multiple Remote Desktops.

 

[belvdr]

Open Applications. Right click on desired app. Duplicate. Open both.

Yeah, I know that, but that is just a hack. For example, when I was a Windows admin, I had to copy the RDC client 5 times to be able to multitask, which is quite dumb. Why can't one just double-click it and open another process?

If the underlying architecture is Unix-based which supports this, then this is a limitation introduced by Apple.

 

[PlaceofDis]

here are the two problems:

it'd require a major overhaul for it to be used by the system, but i agree, read and write support would have been nice to have.

sun was just bought out, no? probably hampering the development and deployment of ZFS in Macs since they were probably working close with sun.

 

[jaw04005]

Sun was just bought out, no? probably hampering the development and deployment of ZFS in Macs since they were probably working close with sun.

They were bought out by Oracle. Oracle is headed by Larry Ellison. Ellison is not only a former Apple board member, but widely known as one of Jobs' closest friends.

If Apple's wants ZFS, they'll get it.

If you want to know more about what ZFS is or what it can do --- Randal Schwartz and Leo Laporte did an interview with a few members of the ZFS product team at Sun. They even discuss (unofficially) Apple.

http://twit.tv/floss58

 

[Tailpike1153]

Maybe we have it really wrong

Didn't Apple just hire Ivan Kristic from OLPC a couple of weeks ago? What if they have something really insane up their sleeves for ZFS and the security feature Kristic may bring to the table? ZFS + plus super security...those would be killer no reason to buy an OS unless you're stone broke.

 

[RedTomato]

I suspect Apple's interest in ZFS came from when they still made Xserve storage racks, and when they were looking at having to massively expand their datacentres in preparation for iTunes, Mobile Me, and the iPhone. They were maybe hoping to use OXS Server / ZFS there.

Since then, they've stopped making Xserve storage racks, and buy in their storage from other companies, and probably found that running largescale datacentres is HARD.

I strongly suspect that their datacentres don't run on OSX. Probably some form of massive unix with massive databases.

Now that they have a solution implemented, some of the internal drive for Apple to sort out ZFS seems to have evaporated. Plus, what they have seems to be working reasonably fine now.

Bringing ZFS up to the standard where they can use it in their data centres (and they will have to, if they're to be a creditable seller of ZFS) will involve a massive amount of work, and considerable risk in their having to disrupt a working solution and implement an untried system. And not very many new sales of OSX Server overall.

OSX Server, while suitable for running departments, and small to mid-sized companies simply does not seem like a large enterprise system to me. It seems to lack the back-end tools that Windows enterprise, and the various large-deployment unixes have.

Apart from Apple HQ itself, I cannot think of any other large company that runs its entire enterprise on OSX Server. I'm sure there must be one or two, but I can't think of any.

 

[Eraserhead]

Only thing I wish they'd fix is the ability to run one application multiple times. It's a hack to get it to work. Any other OS post-1996 can do this, except OS X.

Yeah, I know that, but that is just a hack. For example, when I was a Windows admin, I had to copy the RDC client 5 times to be able to multitask, which is quite dumb. Why can't one just double-click it and open another process?

Why would you want to in general - you can open multiple documents at the same time on the Mac.

The only app that it really applies to is RDC, and there is no good reason Microsoft couldn't have made one app be able to launch multiple VM's at once.

EDIT: Certainly at least RDC 2.0 for Mac can open multiple VMs without duplicating the application, go to File>New Connection.

 

[belvdr]

Why would you want to in general - you can open multiple documents at the same time on the Mac.

The only app that it really applies to is RDC, and there is no good reason Microsoft couldn't have made one app be able to launch multiple VM's at once.

EDIT: Certainly at least RDC 2.0 for Mac can open multiple VMs without duplicating the application, go to File>New Connection.

VM? FYI, it's not a virtual machine.

I'd like to do that because it's a single click when it's on the dock. It's a matter of efficiency. Still, Apple is blocking this from happening, and there's no reason to do so when the base allows it.

Can you open another window of Safari or Firefox by just clicking it on the dock? You couldn't do so in 10.4.