On Thu, 6 Sep 2007, Harold Ancell wrote:
> At 09:33 AM 9/6/2007, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
>> This is my personal opinion and all, but even knowing that Sun
>> encourages open conversations on these mailing lists and blogs it seems to
>> falter common sense for people from @sun.com to be commenting on this
>> topic. It seems like something users should be aware of, but if I were
>> working at Sun I would feel a very strong urge to clear any public
>> conversation about the topic with management. As always, I do appreciate
>> the frank insight given from the sun folks -- I am just worried that you
>> may be doing yourself a disservice talking about it.
>
> "The wicked flee when none pursue, but the righteous are bold as a lion."
>
> (Proverbs 28:1)
>
> Legally dangerous today, but I entirely understand the attitude. And
> this case will be fought as much in the court of public opinion as
> anywhere else; for Sun to get so lawyered up they silence their
> people while NetApp's CEO is playing a restrained version of the
> McBride game ... not a good idea, I think.
>
> E.g. what am I to think about taking the last steps to get OpenSolaris
> and ZFS running on my just built home file server? NetApp's assurances
> they aren't going to go after non-commercial and individual users is
> entirely worthless (can be withdrawn in a moment), and of course silly
> WRT the long term viability of ZFS. I, for one, do not welcome our new
> storage overlords, I don't want to add a $$$ NVRAM RAID-6 host adaptor
> to my system and switch to Linux (ugh) since it is unlikely to have
> OpenSolaris support....
>
Playing with patent portfolios is the modern equivalent to playing the
"mutually assured destruction" game with nuclear missiles. Yes we all
appreciate how dangereous this game is and how high the stakes are.
But ... notice that a live/armed ballistic missile has never been
fired at a "target".
So back to patent portfolios: yes there will be (public and private)
posturing; yes there will be negotiations; and, ultimately, there will
be a resolution. All of this won't affect ZFS or anyone running ZFS.
Just like nuclear ballistic missiles don't affect computer users
either!
What does all this mean to current ZFS users? Absolutely nothing.
In the meantime, enjoy the show. :) Sun has all the resources
necessary to play this (patent) game to its logical conclusion. Now
... back to our regularly scheduled ZFS technical discussions.
PS: If there was a _real_ issue with WAFL/Netapp patent infringement -
it would have been brought up way before ZFS was released and open
sourced.
Regards,
Al Hopper Logical Approach Inc, Plano, TX. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Voice: 972.379.2133 Fax: 972.379.2134 Timezone: US CDT
OpenSolaris Governing Board (OGB) Member - Apr 2005 to Mar 2007
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/community/ogb/ogb_2005-2007/
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