Since this job is near impossible (because some contributors may be dead or hard to find), they have decided to keep the license they have.Ĭopy-on-write is another interesting (and cool) features. According to the OpenZFS website, changing the license would involve contacting anyone who contributed code to the current OpenZFS implementation ( including the initial, common ZFS code till OpenSolaris) and get their permission to change the license. Since the OpenZFS project is separate from Oracle, some probably wonder why they don’t change the license to something that is compatible with the GPL so it can be included in the Linux kernel. Let’s go back to the license issue mentioned above. The project has spearheaded the open-source development of ZFS. They joined other companies and created the OpenZFS project in September of 2013.

Two-thirds of the core ZFS devlopers, including Ahrens and Bonwick, left Oracle due to this decision. Many of the developers of ZFS where unhappy about this turn of events. All further development of ZFS became closed source, as well. Shortly after Oracle purchased Sun Microsystems, OpenSolaris became close-source. To get around this problem, most Linux distros offer methods to install ZFS. However, since ZFS is licensed under the Common Development and Distribution License, which is incompatible with the GNU General Public License, it cannot be included in the Linux kernel. The same year a project was started to port ZFS to Linux. ZFS was designed to be a next generation file system for Sun Microsystems’ OpenSolaris. The Z File System (ZFS) was created by Matthew Ahrens and Jeff Bonwick in 2001. ZFS (developed by Oracle) and OpenZFS have followed different paths since Oracle shutdown OpenSolaris. When I talk about feature and installation, I’m talking about OpenZFS. Note: You will see ZFS repeated many times in the article.

You are free to pronounce it however you like. We will discuss where it came from, what it is, and why it is so popular among techies and enterprise.Įven though I’m from the US, I prefer to pronounce it ZedFS instead of ZeeFS because it sounds cooler. Today, we will take a look at ZFS, an advanced file system.

Zfs file system windows