Sign the OpenGL 4.3, ZFS to OS X 10.9 Apple Petition

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Apple Petition: Bring OpenGL 4.3, ZFS to OS X 10.9

11 February 2013 1,934 views 7 Comments

With the first OS X 10.9 Lynx beta set to pounce soon, the feature set is likely set. Still, add your name to the Apple petition asking for these features.

More better games and the ability to work with huge drives are some of great things that Open 4.3 and ZFS would bring to the Mac. With the first beta of OS X 10.9 Lynx set to pounce any day now, the feature set is already set. Nevertheless, add your name to the Apple petition asking for these needed features.

Will OS X 10.9 Lynx have OpenGL 4.3 and ZFS? I haven’t seen any hint of that and Apple has almost certainly set the features in stone by now.

Still, Thomas Monte started an Apple petition asking the company to include OpenGL 4.3 and ZFS in OS X 10.9 Lynx.

Apple has already started working on OS X 10.9. As a Apple user, I would like them to include two things in the new operating system.

1.) HFS+ is an extension of HFS that was developed in the 1980s. ZFS is a modern file system able to address huge drives and provide stability. I would like to see ZFS or the equivalent in the new operating system.
2.) Apple supports OpenGL 3.2, which was released back in 2009. OpenGL 4.3 was just released and would give the Apple platform parity with Microsoft in graphics libraries, security and performance.

Please support my petition by signing and showing your support!

Why OpenGL 4.3 and ZFS? OS X 10.8 Mountain uses OpenGL 3.2, which shipped back in 2009, and OpenGL 4.3 came out last August and is, quite frankly, modern — it’s time for graphics parity with Windows. Mac gaming has grown by leaps and bounds without it, but OpenGL 4.3 will provide a big boost.

ZFS is, for its part, a modern file system that, among other things, would allow use of unpartitioned really huge drives or arrays thereof.

So, OS X 10.9 Lynx may or may not included OpenGL 4.3 and ZFS. Nevertheless, I’ve added my voice to Monte’s Apple petition…

What’s your take?

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7 Comments »

itechieguy.com said:

I would like it if everyone would just get off the ZFS band wagon. I have no doubt the ZFS is technically better than HFS+, but it has it’s problems. It has nothing to do with technology, it has to do with licensing.

ZFS uses the Common Development and Distribution License. Apple uses Apple Public Source License which is based on GNU. GNU and CDDL are not compatible with each other. This is from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html:

“This is a free software license. It has a copyleft with a scope that’s similar to the one in the Mozilla Public License, which makes it incompatible with the GNU GPL. This means a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together. We urge you not to use the CDDL for this reason.

Also unfortunate in the CDDL is its use of the term “intellectual property”.”

Here is a good write up about ZFS and Linux licensing, http://kerneltrap.org/node/8066. ZFS and Apple would have similar issues. That is the real reason Apple did not adopt ZFS.

This is not the first time Apple has run into licensing issues when implementing technology. Apple’s printing technology is based on CUPS. Ever consider funny why Apple bought CUPS? It comes down to licensing. CUPS, at the time, could have changed their licensing to GPLv3, which is a digital rights mess, forcing Apple’s hand as it pertained to CUPS. It was much easier to just buy CUPS to insure it stayed GPLv2.

There are available ZFS solutions for the Mac. Those companies distributing ZFS are not as encumbered by the CDDL agreement. The CDDL is not as much a detriment to them as it would be to Apple.

So, in recap, licensing sometimes gets in the way of a company being able to adopt technology. It is Sun’s Licensing agreement that gets in the way of a true wider adoption of ZFS. Apple just didn’t decide to not adopt ZFS, they couldn’t get licensing ironed out.

# 11 February 2013 at 2:11 pm

Daniel Bethe said:

You’re in the ballpark of reasons that Apple dropped ZFS support: licensing. But that’s all unfortunately mistaken because it’s not because of the CDDL. As Apple said, the reason was a temporary one because of Netapp’s lawsuit against Sun and thus potentially against Sun’s customers. The key Apple engineers moved on to other things, the lawsuit was subsequently eliminated, and Apple never resumed public support for ZFS. Apple’s lawyers had not just instantly realized that they’d made a terrible mistake for the prior several years because one license is inherently conflicting with another. Additionally, in all of ZFS history, I have never personally heard of anyone even alleging that the CDDL was incompatible with anything but the GPL.

There is no reason whatsoever for anyone to stop dealing with ZFS, and the GPL and Linux have a completely different issue. ZFS can work perfectly fine and without dispute on Linux as long as ZFS is not distributed inside the kernel’s GPL source code, but even its direct legal inclusion is debated. And finally, ZFS is not a bandwagon; it’s sheer technological superiority and necessity.

In the meantime, ZFS is free software, it’s not dependent upon any company or person, and it’s always been on Mac OS at http://maczfs.org/ . Thanks!

# 11 February 2013 at 2:49 pm

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# 11 February 2013 at 4:39 pm

Doh said:

Sun released two incredible technologies under their CDDL.

dtrace
ZFS

So, if you feel that there is a licensing issue with ZFS, please feel free to write to Apple and tell them to yank out dtrace as well. Because, guess what – you can type “man dtrace” on Mountain Lion and get some interesting things to read.

It was *NOT* a licensing issue, it was an indemnity issue, and Apple asked Sun to indemnify them against any lawsuits arising from their use of ZFS, and Sun said no.

# 12 February 2013 at 4:33 pm

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# 13 February 2013 at 10:54 pm

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# 15 February 2013 at 9:50 am

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# 6 March 2013 at 4:37 am