Leopard spots a file system (and pirate laws)

Apple will use ZFS. Apple won't use ZFS. Will. Won't. Sun knows best. Apple knows best. It's Wednesday, and already we're weary. Not to mention, pirates do not cry ...

MacUser was disappointed:

Yesterday’s Jobsnote certainly lacked plenty of announcements that we wanted to hear, but notably absent—to my ears, anyway—were a couple of things that I very much expected to hear, especially in a discussion Leopard’s new features: ZFS and resolution independence.

Engadget: breathe in, breathe out:

Hopefully this is the last time we'll be forced to post on this topic, but we're not holding our breath: now InformationWeek -- which quoted an Apple executive this morning stating the polar opposite -- is reporting that Sun's ZFS file system IS in fact included in Leopard, albeit with a number of huge caveats. According to a company spokesperson seeking to clear up Brian Croll's "misstatement," while HFS+ continues to be the primary system used in OS X, ZFS has been coded in as a latent, "read-only option available from the command line."

Michael Calore sums it up nicely:

ZFS in Leopard. We had word straight from the pony's mouth and still came up with snake eyes on this one. Last week, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz said Apple would adopt its Zettabyte File System as the default storage scheme for Mac OS X 10.5. On Monday, Apple's Brian Croll told InformationWeek that Leopard will use the inferior HFS+ filesystem. So far, Schwartz and Sun have kept their mouths shut about the gaffe. Maybe we'll see it when Mac OS X goes 128-bit? [UPDATE: CNet just clarified the issue: Leopard will use ZFS, but not exclusively -- thanks to our anonymous tipster.]

Originally, Miss Information Week had told us:

An Apple official on Monday said Sun Microsystems' open-source file system would not be in the next version of the Mac operating system, contradicting statements made last week by Sun's chief executive.

During an interview with InformationWeek, Brian Croll, senior director of product marketing for the Mac OS, said, "ZFS is not happening," when asked whether Sun's Zettabyte File System would be in Leopard.

But then she had this update:

Apple now says that the ZFS file system will be available in the forthcoming Mac operating system, sort of.

In a follow-up interview today, Croll explained, "ZFS is not the default file system for Leopard. We are exploring it as a file system option for high-end storage systems with really large storage. As a result, we have included ZFS -- a read-only copy of ZFS -- in Leopard."

Dotnaught clarifies:

I was one of the two reporters in that interview and we both were surprised by Croll's comment. We were just contacted by Apple to say that what we heard (or what we both thought we heard) was not the fully story. The real story is:

An Apple spokesperson seeking to clarify Croll's statement indicated that ZFS would be available as a limited option, but not as the default file system."

Further detail:

It's only available as a read only option from the command line.

We're still trying to find out what this means, but a correction is coming.

Nick Santilli has an idea:

What this means to the rest of us is that we can’t write to a ZFS drive with Leopard. However if you’ve got some server (Solaris being most likely) running ZFS, Leopard will allow you to read that drive. Um, woohoo? I guess it could be worse, and we’d get no comment/support on the ZFS front, but this is clearly a let down. If you’re not sure why ZFS is a big deal, there’s a great article about it here.

Tom Krazit has patience:

Apple's HFS+ was introduced with Mac OS 8.1. Adding ZFS to the mix basically means that you can take advantage of a number of features, like adding huge amounts of storage, that my colleague Declan McCullagh outlines here. At some point, Apple will likely make ZFS the default file system for Mac OS X, but Sun hasn't even gotten around to doing that yet for Solaris 10. These transitions can take years.

Charles Jade knew this would happen:

While Mac technology enthusiasts were delighted by the prospect of the advanced file system coming to the Mac, this "announcement" came as something of a surprise to others, including the staff of Ars Technica.

"The opinion here at Ars is that the disruption of a new file system and the late start ZFS had in Leopard (rumor had it that ZFS partitioning didn't even work in recent seeds) makes the probability of it becoming the default remote." ...

Update: InformationWeek sought and received clarification that really wasn't necessary. In a follow-up interview Apple representatives now say ZFS will be supported in Leopard.

ZFS "is only available a read-only option from the command line," according to an Apple spokesperson.

It's just nearly useless.

Check back in 18 to 24 months for ZFS in OS X INSERT_CAT_NAME_HERE.

Buffer overflow:

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Previously in IT Blogwatch

• Apple ports Safari to Windows (and inflatable camouflage rocks)
• Microsoft and Google search for Justice (and things that don't change)
• Microsoft/LG Linux patent deal (and catcam)
• Porn pop-up teacher: prosecution prevented? (and twitterku)
• Microsoft and Xandros in new patent spat (and BttF)
• Older posts

And finally... pirate do's and don'ts ...

Computerworld's online projects editor, Joyce Carpenter, compiled IT Blogwatch today. Regular Blogwatcher Richi Jennings will return next week.