The only reason I thought this news would be of interest is that the discussions had some interesting comments. Basically, there is a significant outcry because zfs was going away. I saw NextentaOS and EON mentioned several times as the path to go. Seem that there is some opportunity for OpenSolaris advocacy in this arena while the topic is hot. Gary -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
Michael DeMan (OA)
2009-Dec-08 06:06 UTC
[zfs-discuss] freeNAS moves to Linux from FreeBSD
Actually it appears that FreeNAS is forking with planned support for both linux (we can only speculate on the preferred backing file system) and FreeBSD with ZFS as preferred backing file system. In regards to OpenSolaris advocacy for using OpenSolaris vs. FreeBSD, I''m all ears if anybody is bold enough to clutter up this mailing list with it. A quick start from my perspective (and this is no way complete) would be: Basically, I have a need for a modern file systems with snapshots both for internal purposes and to support vmware instances. De-depluciation is a nice idea, but given our size, the balance between risk and dollars makes it easier to just have more disk space. Args for FreeBSD + ZFS: - Limited budget - We are familiar with managing FreeBSD. - We are familiar with tuning FreeBSD. - Licensing model Args against FreeBSD + ZFS: - Stability (?) - Possibly performance (although we have limited needs for CIFS) Args for OpenSolaris + ZFS: - Stability Args against OpenSolaris + ZFS: - Hardware compatibility - Lack of knowledge for tuning and associated costs for training staff to learn ''yet one more operating system'' they need to support. - Licensing model On Dec 6, 2009, at 6:28 PM, Gary Gendel wrote:> The only reason I thought this news would be of interest is that the discussions had some interesting comments. Basically, there is a significant outcry because zfs was going away. I saw NextentaOS and EON mentioned several times as the path to go. > > Seem that there is some opportunity for OpenSolaris advocacy in this arena while the topic is hot. > > Gary > -- > This message posted from opensolaris.org > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
Michael DeMan (OA) wrote:> Actually it appears that FreeNAS is forking with planned support for both linux (we can only speculate on the preferred backing file system) and FreeBSD with ZFS as preferred backing file system. > > > In regards to OpenSolaris advocacy for using OpenSolaris vs. FreeBSD, I''m all ears if anybody is bold enough to clutter up this mailing list with it. > > A quick start from my perspective (and this is no way complete) would be: > > > > Basically, I have a need for a modern file systems with snapshots both for internal purposes and to support vmware instances. De-depluciation is a nice idea, but given our size, the balance between risk and dollars makes it easier to just have more disk space. > > > Args for FreeBSD + ZFS: > > - Limited budget > - We are familiar with managing FreeBSD. > - We are familiar with tuning FreeBSD. > - Licensing model > > Args against FreeBSD + ZFS: > - Stability (?) > - Possibly performance (although we have limited needs for CIFS) > > > Args for OpenSolaris + ZFS: > - Stability > > Args against OpenSolaris + ZFS: > - Hardware compatibility > - Lack of knowledge for tuning and associated costs for training staff to learn ''yet one more operating system'' they need to support. > - Licensing model >I''d have to go back over the CDDL, but my understanding is that since ZFS is CDDL, the inclusion of CDDL zfs code in the FreeBSD FreeNAS setup means that you have essentially the same licensing model as the all-CDDL OpenSolaris. In any case, the CDDL is very liberal (it''s a variation of the MPL), so the differences should be very minor in terms of real impact on a business model (that is, vs a BSD-license). Tuning for Solaris is definitely a bit more wizardly magic than for FreeBSD, but there are significant mitigating factors: (1) there is now very good [if very dense] documentation on the tunables (and what they mean) for much of the Solaris kernel. (e.g. http://www.informit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=0131482092 ) (2) Most tunable needs in something like FreeNAS apply to ZFS, which means that BOTH FreeBSD and OpenSolaris would need to be tuned; therefore, there is little difference between using either OS in terms of tunables. (3) Solaris itself is generally very, very good at NOT needing to be tuned. IMHO, it''s probably the Best OS in these terms, meaning that the need to tune is significantly lower than other OSes, and thus, knowing HOW to tune is generally much less important. One other advantage of using OpenSolaris over FreeBSD is simply First Mover - that is, fixes show up first in OpenSolaris, it has a much larger user community around ZFS, and the primary engineers are using OpenSolaris as their development and testing platforms. I would also place the COMSTAR stuff as a major reason for a NAS-project to consider OpenSolaris over other OSes. It''s just soooo nice. :-) That all said, in your specific case where you have significant in-house FreeBSD knowledge, I would stick with it for the time being. The differences for something like FreeNAS are relatively minor, and it''s better to Go With What You Know. Exploring OpenSolaris for a future migration would be good, but for right now, I''d stick to FreeBSD. -- Erik Trimble Java System Support Mailstop: usca22-123 Phone: x17195 Santa Clara, CA Timezone: US/Pacific (GMT-0800)
On Mon, 7 Dec 2009, Michael DeMan (OA) wrote:> > Args for FreeBSD + ZFS: > > - Limited budget > - We are familiar with managing FreeBSD. > - We are familiar with tuning FreeBSD. > - Licensing model > > Args against OpenSolaris + ZFS: > - Hardware compatibility > - Lack of knowledge for tuning and associated costs for training staff to learn ''yet one more operating system'' they need to support. > - Licensing modelIf you think about it a little bit, you will see that there is no significant difference in the licensing model between FreeBSD+ZFS and OpenSolaris+ZFS. It is not possible to be a "little bit pregnant". Either one is pregnant, or one is not. Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:02 PM, Bob Friesenhahn <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> wrote:> On Mon, 7 Dec 2009, Michael DeMan (OA) wrote: >> >> Args for FreeBSD + ZFS: >> >> - Limited budget >> - We are familiar with managing FreeBSD. >> - We are familiar with tuning FreeBSD. >> - Licensing model >> >> Args against OpenSolaris + ZFS: >> - Hardware compatibility >> - Lack of knowledge for tuning and associated costs for training staff to >> learn ''yet one more operating system'' they need to support. >> - Licensing model > > If you think about it a little bit, you will see that there is no > significant difference in the licensing model between FreeBSD+ZFS and > OpenSolaris+ZFS. ?It is not possible to be a "little bit pregnant". Either > one is pregnant, or one is not. >Well, FreeBSD pretends it''s possible, by shipping zfs and bearing BSD license at the same time. Regards, Andrey> Bob > -- > Bob Friesenhahn > bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ > GraphicsMagick Maintainer, ? ?http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/ > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss >
Andrey Kuzmin wrote:> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:02 PM, Bob Friesenhahn > <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> wrote: > >> On Mon, 7 Dec 2009, Michael DeMan (OA) wrote: >> >>> Args for FreeBSD + ZFS: >>> >>> - Limited budget >>> - We are familiar with managing FreeBSD. >>> - We are familiar with tuning FreeBSD. >>> - Licensing model >>> >>> Args against OpenSolaris + ZFS: >>> - Hardware compatibility >>> - Lack of knowledge for tuning and associated costs for training staff to >>> learn ''yet one more operating system'' they need to support. >>> - Licensing model >>> >> If you think about it a little bit, you will see that there is no >> significant difference in the licensing model between FreeBSD+ZFS and >> OpenSolaris+ZFS. It is not possible to be a "little bit pregnant". Either >> one is pregnant, or one is not. >> >> > > Well, FreeBSD pretends it''s possible, by shipping zfs and bearing BSD > license at the same time. >CDDL only covers the files which are already CDDL so they can''t claim a pure BSD licensed release, but they probably have to include GPL stuff as well and no idea the status of removing whatever parts of that may be hanging around. Who cares about license as long as you have the right to do what *you* need with the source. /me -> back to coding..
2009/12/8 "C. Bergstr?m" <codestr0m at osunix.org>> Andrey Kuzmin wrote: > >> On Tue, Dec 8, 2009 at 7:02 PM, Bob Friesenhahn >> <bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us> wrote: >> >> >>> On Mon, 7 Dec 2009, Michael DeMan (OA) wrote: >>> >>> >>>> Args for FreeBSD + ZFS: >>>> >>>> - Limited budget >>>> - We are familiar with managing FreeBSD. >>>> - We are familiar with tuning FreeBSD. >>>> - Licensing model >>>> >>>> Args against OpenSolaris + ZFS: >>>> - Hardware compatibility >>>> - Lack of knowledge for tuning and associated costs for training staff >>>> to >>>> learn ''yet one more operating system'' they need to support. >>>> - Licensing model >>>> >>>> >>> If you think about it a little bit, you will see that there is no >>> significant difference in the licensing model between FreeBSD+ZFS and >>> OpenSolaris+ZFS. It is not possible to be a "little bit pregnant". >>> Either >>> one is pregnant, or one is not. >>> >>> >>> >> >> Well, FreeBSD pretends it''s possible, by shipping zfs and bearing BSD >> license at the same time. >> >> > CDDL only covers the files which are already CDDL so they can''t claim a > pure BSD licensed release, but they probably have to include GPL stuff as > well and no idea the status of removing whatever parts of that may be > hanging around. Who cares about license as long as you have the right to do > what *you* need with the source. > > /me -> back to coding.. > >I''d say EVERYONE should care. If they''re improperly using a license, it could cause the project to be discontinued entirely. Tying yourself/your production workload to a project that may potentially be gone tomorrow isn''t exactly a good idea. -- --Tim -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20091208/4055048e/attachment.html>
Andrey Kuzmin <andrey.v.kuzmin at gmail.com> wrote:> > If you think about it a little bit, you will see that there is no > > significant difference in the licensing model between FreeBSD+ZFS and > > OpenSolaris+ZFS. ?It is not possible to be a "little bit pregnant". Either > > one is pregnant, or one is not. > > > > Well, FreeBSD pretends it''s possible, by shipping zfs and bearing BSD > license at the same time.The idea I used some years ago when convincing the *BSD people to include ZFS was that the CDDL is compatible to the BSD license and that ZFS could be seen as "optional", so it still is possible to have a BSD installation that does not need ZFS. Judging this way, you may still build a 100% BSD OS even though everybody could add ZFS. J?rg -- EMail:joerg at schily.isdn.cs.tu-berlin.de (home) J?rg Schilling D-13353 Berlin js at cs.tu-berlin.de (uni) joerg.schilling at fokus.fraunhofer.de (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/ URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
Bob Friesenhahn wrote:> On Mon, 7 Dec 2009, Michael DeMan (OA) wrote: >> >> Args for FreeBSD + ZFS: >> >> - Limited budget >> - We are familiar with managing FreeBSD. >> - We are familiar with tuning FreeBSD. >> - Licensing model >> >> Args against OpenSolaris + ZFS: >> - Hardware compatibility >> - Lack of knowledge for tuning and associated costs for training staff >> to learn ''yet one more operating system'' they need to support. >> - Licensing model > > If you think about it a little bit, you will see that there is no > significant difference in the licensing model between FreeBSD+ZFS and > OpenSolaris+ZFS. It is not possible to be a "little bit pregnant". > Either one is pregnant, or one is not.There is a huge difference practically - OpenSolaris has no free security updates for stable releases, unlike FreeBSD. And I''m sure you don''t recommend running /dev in production. This is offtopic, and isn''t specifically related to CDDL vs BSD, just how Sun chooses to do things. Sure, there have been claims (since before 2008.05) that it might happen some day, but until 2009.06 users can freely get a non-vulernable Firefox or Samba or fixes for various network kernel panics the claims are meaningless. http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/opensolaris-help/2009-November/015824.html -- James Andrewartha
On Wed, 9 Dec 2009, James Andrewartha wrote:> > There is a huge difference practically - OpenSolaris has no free security > updates for stable releases, unlike FreeBSD. And I''m sure you don''t recommend > running /dev in production.If OpenSolaris was to do that, then it would be called Solaris. :-) It seems that Solaris 10 offers free security and critical updates. Of course the desktop application software is quite old and OS features lag behind OpenSolaris. Sun needs to find a way to improve its profit margins and retain its valuable employees, and the way it does that is by selling service contracts. The base service contract for Solaris 10 is not terribly expensive, although it mostly just offers full access to patches and the Sunsolve site. Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/