Thank you for your detailled answer.
I understand the stabilty aspect and value it very high and indeed
Illumos ZFS has not seen as many problems up to dataloss in 10 years as
one or the other Linux ZFS distribution in the last year. Unlike Linux
every Illumos distribution is up to date with a clear and easy way to
update to newest or downgrade. The OmniOS model of a bloody (current
Illumos), stable (a freeze every 6 months) and a long term stable, each
with its own repository undelines this strong focus on stability. This
is something I don't want to miss so preserve an independent fork. Using
code from newest Open-ZFS master is surely not a good idea, the question
is how to take over code from a stable branch ex 2.2.6 or better a
former with a better stability like 2.2.3 or what TrueNAS is using as
stable branch.
The real question from a user view is how to preserve compatibility with
a ZFS pool from a current BSD, Debian, Ubuntu or TrueNAS and when to get
important Open-ZFS features like ZSTD, Draid, Raid-Z exansion, Fast
Dedup, direct io or higher limits ex on recsize and much more to come
while value stability as item2. Stability and compatibility are not
either or. Find a way to get newer Open-ZFS features including bugfix
commits with the best achievable stability. Not to have newer ZFS
features is not an option. Have your cake and eat it.
In a perfect world with endless resources you can check, include and
maintain every of these features on your own including bugfixes when
they become known but is this thinkable? I suppose no, so the
consequence is that you loose compatibility and lack more and more newer
ZFS features. In the end >95% of all ZFS users are now using Open-ZFS
and with such many users problem rate is not as bad and bugs are fixed
in a quite short time.
Maybe a staging model can be one solution like an older more stable
Open-ZFS branch > Illumos testing > Illumos stable (similar to what
current Illumos is), just like we see it in Open-ZFS or the OmniOS
approach or in the Open-ZFS world with Open-ZFS forks on OSX or Windows.
This would allow newest Open-ZFS features to appear with a delay but to
appear for sure. Maybe newer long awaited bits like the recent NFS and
SMB improvements have also a chance to appear in a Illumos testing
branch for wider testings.
Just one idea but a workable idea how to follow Open-ZFS development is
critical or user base will lower not from year to year but month to
month. I can see it in my own user base where most of my former
Solaris/OI/OmniOS users from some years ago switched to Open-ZFS in the
meantime, some to Qnap most to Debian/Proxmox/TrueNAS/Ubuntu. This is
why I also switched my new ZFS client-server cs web-gui to Open-ZFS (any
OS) without further development in the Solaris/Illumos SE edition beside
bugfixes.
Gea
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