[9fans] coraid in the news

[9fans] coraid in the news

[andrey mirtchovski]

albeit not in the good news:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/06/netapp_coraid/

(sorry about the source, those who dislike ElReg)

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[Jacob Todd]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 210 bytes --]

The Article said:
> It might say that, faced with someone using its stolen property supplied by a
> third party, Oracle-Sun, with whom it is in a legal dispute, what is it
> expected to do?
What property?

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 205 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[andrey mirtchovski]

> What property?

zfs, i presume?

erik, i care about zfs, tell me more.

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[erik quanstrom]

On Tue Jul  6 21:15:59 EDT 2010, mirtchovski@gmail.com wrote:
> > What property?
>
> zfs, i presume?
>
> erik, i care about zfs, tell me more.

speaking as a private citizen with no "insider"
knowledge in this case ....

i think it should be obvious to any vaguely careful
thinker that there is no "stolen property"
involved.  if i understand the article correctly,
they ment to say "alleged infringement".  an earlier
version of the same article made more sense to me:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/06/nexenta_comment_on_netapp_coraid/
the current article seems to have undergone
significant declarification.

i don't know anything about the patents involved
except sun claims there is prior art.

clearly, coraid won't send commandos to make
sure that you don't use zfs with coraid storage.

- erik

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[Venkatesh Srinivas]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 153 bytes --]

> clearly, coraid won't send commandos to make sure that you don't use zfs
with coraid storage.

If they do, will they be from outer space?

-- vs

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 204 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[EBo]

>> clearly, coraid won't send commandos to make sure that you don't use
zfs
>> with coraid storage.
>
> If they do, will they be from outer space?

How did we get from paralegal to paratroopers?

I'm more interested in what this means for Coraid?  If Oracle buckles
under then zfs ports to Linux et al. is doomed.

  EBo --

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[Jasse Jansson]

On 07/ 7/10 04:13 AM, erik quanstrom wrote:
> On Tue Jul  6 21:15:59 EDT 2010, mirtchovski@gmail.com wrote:
>>> What property?
>>
>> zfs, i presume?
>>
>> erik, i care about zfs, tell me more.
>
> speaking as a private citizen with no "insider"
> knowledge in this case ....
>
> i think it should be obvious to any vaguely careful
> thinker that there is no "stolen property"
> involved.  if i understand the article correctly,
> they ment to say "alleged infringement".  an earlier
> version of the same article made more sense to me:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/06/nexenta_comment_on_netapp_coraid/
> the current article seems to have undergone
> significant declarification.
>
> i don't know anything about the patents involved
> except sun claims there is prior art.
>
> clearly, coraid won't send commandos to make
> sure that you don't use zfs with coraid storage.
>
> - erik
>
>

I kinda remember that it was something about the copy-before-write
technology.
There was some disturbance about it a few years ago.


--
Kaiser Jasse -- Authorized Stealth Oracle

The axioms of wisdom:
1. Go the SPARC way of life
2. You can't conquer the universe without the knowledge of FORTRAN
3. In the Unix realm, 10% of work fixes 90% of the problems
4. You can't outstubborn a cat

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[Brantley Coile]

Please don't comment on the case at all.

On Jul 6, 2010, at 10:13 PM, erik quanstrom wrote:

> On Tue Jul  6 21:15:59 EDT 2010, mirtchovski@gmail.com wrote:
>>> What property?
>> 
>> zfs, i presume?
>> 
>> erik, i care about zfs, tell me more.
> 
> speaking as a private citizen with no "insider"
> knowledge in this case ....
> 
> i think it should be obvious to any vaguely careful
> thinker that there is no "stolen property"
> involved.  if i understand the article correctly,
> they ment to say "alleged infringement".  an earlier
> version of the same article made more sense to me:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/06/nexenta_comment_on_netapp_coraid/
> the current article seems to have undergone
> significant declarification.
> 
> i don't know anything about the patents involved
> except sun claims there is prior art.
> 
> clearly, coraid won't send commandos to make
> sure that you don't use zfs with coraid storage.
> 
> - erik
> 
> 

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[Brantley Coile]

What I meant to say, is that we at Coraid can't say much more than 
has already been said about this case.

On Jul 6, 2010, at 10:13 PM, erik quanstrom wrote:

> On Tue Jul  6 21:15:59 EDT 2010, mirtchovski@gmail.com wrote:
>>> What property?
>> 
>> zfs, i presume?
>> 
>> erik, i care about zfs, tell me more.
> 
> speaking as a private citizen with no "insider"
> knowledge in this case ....
> 
> i think it should be obvious to any vaguely careful
> thinker that there is no "stolen property"
> involved.  if i understand the article correctly,
> they ment to say "alleged infringement".  an earlier
> version of the same article made more sense to me:
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/06/nexenta_comment_on_netapp_coraid/
> the current article seems to have undergone
> significant declarification.
> 
> i don't know anything about the patents involved
> except sun claims there is prior art.
> 
> clearly, coraid won't send commandos to make
> sure that you don't use zfs with coraid storage.
> 
> - erik
> 
> 

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[Brantley Coile]

While there really isn't anything other than what's on our web site to say, I can say that the Open Solaris NAS is important but not a requirement for Coraid's success.  We are not doomed.
Brantley

On Jul 6, 2010, at 11:19 PM, EBo wrote:

> 
>>> clearly, coraid won't send commandos to make sure that you don't use
> zfs
>>> with coraid storage.
>> 
>> If they do, will they be from outer space?
> 
> How did we get from paralegal to paratroopers?
> 
> I'm more interested in what this means for Coraid?  If Oracle buckles
> under then zfs ports to Linux et al. is doomed.
> 
>  EBo --
> 
> 
> 

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[Anthony Sorace]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 997 bytes --]

>> I'm more interested in what this means for Coraid?  If Oracle buckles
>> under then zfs ports to Linux et al. is doomed.


It's unlikely Oracle will buckle, although it's theoretically possible
they'll lose. That would uphold NetApp's patents and potentially make
the use of ZFS illegal without a license from NetApp.

(Speaking as someone looking to buy from Coraid...)

Coraid's primary business, and certainly the vast majority of their
product line, is about SAN storage: providing arrays of storage bits
over the network. None of that has anything to do with ZFS. A common
thing to do with those bits is create a file system for export (via
NFS or whatnot) to other hosts; this is what Coraid's Z-series line
does. ZFS is a popular option for how to implement that, and I gather
what the Z-series uses internally (or what's NetApp on about?), but
certainly isn't the only option. The installation I'm planning for,
for example, hasn't been considering ZFS.

Anthony


[-- Attachment #2: This is a digitally signed message part --]
[-- Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 201 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[EBo]

> It's unlikely Oracle will buckle, although it's theoretically possible
> they'll lose. That would uphold NetApp's patents and potentially make
> the use of ZFS illegal without a license from NetApp.

>From what they said they have prior art, so that should shoot it down
pretty quick.

> Coraid's primary business, and certainly the vast majority of their
> product line, is about SAN storage: providing arrays of storage bits
> over the network. None of that has anything to do with ZFS. A common
> thing to do with those bits is create a file system for export (via
> NFS or whatnot) to other hosts; this is what Coraid's Z-series line
> does. ZFS is a popular option for how to implement that, and I gather
> what the Z-series uses internally (or what's NetApp on about?), but
> certainly isn't the only option. The installation I'm planning for,
> for example, hasn't been considering ZFS.

So NetApp was basically posturing and ZFS is not fundamental to their
business.  Maybe the publisher would be willing to publish a followup
stating that ZFS is not, and was never, a fundamental part of the product
and that it is only one of something like 50 different file systems.  I get
the feeling that NetApp is afraid of their competitors bring out superior
products.

Anyway, thanks for the info.

  EBo --

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[EBo]

Ah... I was referring to ZFS not Coraid.  I doubted that Coraid would see
this as more than a bump in the road, but thought I would ask.

> While there really isn't anything other than what's on our web site to
> say, I can say that the Open Solaris NAS is important but not a
requirement
> for Coraid's success.  We are not doomed.
>
>> I'm more interested in what this means for Coraid?  If Oracle buckles
>> under then zfs ports to Linux et al. is doomed.

Re: [9fans] coraid in the news

[EBo]

> Please don't comment on the case at all.

oops... sorry.  reading the email back to front.