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Sun CEO Says NetApp Lied in Fear of Open Source
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Sep 07, 2007 08:59 AM
from the ph34r-m3 dept.
from the ph34r-m3 dept.
Lucas123 writes "In reaction to NetApp's patent infringement lawsuit against Sun, CEO Jonathan Schwartz today said in his blog that NetApp basically lied in its legal filing when it said Sun asked them for licensing fees for use of their ZFS file system technology. In a separate statement, Sun said NetApp's lawsuit is about fear over open-source ZFS technology as a competitive threat. 'The rise of the open-source community cannot be stifled by proprietary vendors. I guess not everyone's learned that lesson'."
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Ironic-- if true-- given NetApp's FOSS foundation (Score:2)
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Data ONTAP (dating back to NetApp's first product, which means "before the marketing department came up with the name 'Data ONTAP'") isn't, and never was, a stripped-down version of BSD. It incorporated the BSD networking stack, and some BSD commands, but incorporated them into an OS that ran all processes in the same address space, in kernel mode, using message-passing.
The newer ONTAP GX is based on FreeBSD, as noted by another p
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http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2007/04/index.html [netapp.com]
The battlin' bloggers (Score:5, Funny)
Stay tuned for the next exciting installment, where Schwartz will compare his father's fighting ability and overall physical prowess with that of Warmenhoven's father.
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I like watching bloggers... (Score:2)
What's that? You mean those are CLOGGERS? Oh, that's different, nevermind.
This suit is more pathetic than funny (Score:5, Insightful)
When a company resorts to legal crap, it's because they're no longer viable on technical merit. And both Sun and NetApp *are* still good technically, so this argument is pointless.
Seriously, fire the lawyers on both your staffs who suggested to litigate, as they are bringing your companies down. And no, I don't care who started it, since you're both at it now.
And then go back to doing good things.
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Hey, didn't you help fund SCO's anti-linux FUDfest? Eff you!
Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny (Score:5, Informative)
And I think that was McNealy anyways, not Schwartz
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Re:This suit is more pathetic than funny (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, turning the legal department loose on Java will certainly improve the situation.
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Suits and countersuits (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, like my own position on buying stuff from Amazon or Disney (which means that at present I have spent $0 on them in the last ten years), I think I can successfully live without tech from Sun OR NetApp -- until the current software patent madness comes to an end -- or at least the injunction induced extortion rackets die down.
Which is where Open Source and GPL'd software really starts to make sense, don't you think?
Sun... THE Sun? (Score:2)
Joking aside, I guess it's a sign of things to come. Sun's dance with open source almost certainly presages the end of the behemoth proprietary software vendors. This makes sense, of course. Typical software that runs typical computers is now a commodity, downloadable for free over the Internet, and modifiable by all comers. The business wo
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The OS and a few applications may be a commodity, however a lot of applications certainly aren't. Accounting and payroll are the first most obvious that spring to mind, though there are many others.
That being said, very lar
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It is a start, but it hardly makes a dent in the proprietary software world. I am at a university right now, and here is an abbreviated list of free vs. proprietary software in use:
Free: Linux, Solaris, KDE, GNOME, OpenOffice.org, Firefox, VNC, OpenSSH, GNU, GIMP
Proprietary: Windows, Mac OS X, IE7, Matlab, Mathematica, Maple, Citrix/Metaframe, MS Office, Microchip PIC software, Xilinx, Solid Edge, Visual Studio, Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Apple i*, Oracle, PSPICE
That's about what I'd expect. As proprietary software is edged out, it will be the plethora of specialized applications that hold on the longest. The list of software that you give encompasses thousands of programs, but you notice thaat you called out very few individual open source programs. That's because the open source equivalent of Oracle that comes free with Linux is just a commodity. The open source equivalent of Acrobat that comes for free with Linux is just a commodity. Many organizations don't ev
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See what Dave Hitz has to say (Score:3, Informative)
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The reality is NetApp is in trouble. Lets face it, 2TB of storage yesterday was big bucks. Today, it is 4 Seagate drives at Best Buy and fit in one PC. Cluster 4 dual AMD x2's together on 1000GB interconnects and it has never been cheaper to spin 8TB into your own appliance. Do it with Linux or Solaris. Or like NetApps, BSD.
Same thing happened with SCO. Shrinking user base from competition and poor product maintenance. Too much money for Gocci shoes and not enough R&D. NetApp, good-bye.
Re:See what Dave Hitz has to say (Score:4, Insightful)
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More ADVERTS from IDG... (Score:2, Interesting)
Looks like IDG (ComputerWorld, ITWorld, NetworkWorld...) is really hitting Slashdot HARD, either that or they have a deal with Slashdot. Here's a partial list of the shills that regularly show up and have almost 100% article acceptance rates: Lucas123 [slashdot.com]
coondoggie [slashdot.com]
inkslinger77 [slashdot.com]
narramissic [slashdot.com]
jcatcw [slashdot.com]
Looks like they spread out the work over a few shill user accounts, which is to be e
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=290119&cid=20
But for once, an INTERESTING one. Keep up the good work, Frosty
Allow me to retort (Score:5, Interesting)
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What if it's IDG who is getting paid by Slashdot to provide content? Much more likely a scenario...
EMC says: Bye-Bye NetApp (Score:5, Insightful)
However keep in mind that NetApp started this. NetApp saying that Sun started this is incorrect, because that would be equating StorageTek with Sun. And if this were purely a StorageTek issue, then ZFS wouldn't be involved.
So what really happened is NetApp is being damaged or fears being damaged from open source storage platforms, ZFS in particular, and they have decided to sue Sun. NetApp is rightly very concerned about a big backlash from bringing this kind of suit, so they are trying to confuse the issue as much as possible by saying that the fight goes back all the way to StorageTek.
And I really believe Jonathan when he says in his blog that he was blind sided by NetApp on this. David Hitz is trying to paint a picture that Sun wouldn't return the NetApp lawyer's calls so NetApp had no recourse but to get their attention by sueing them. If Dave Hitz really wanted to get some traction on this with Sun, why didn't he call Jonathan himself. Had he done so, David Hitz would have said so in his blog.
Once the community thinks about this, and realizes that if NetApp prevails, and kills ZFS, then the prospects for improvements in open-source file system technology will be greatly set back. I would expect an army of open source volunteers scrutinizing all of NetApp's patent claims, and trying to find prior art. Also a large number of open-source organization Amicus Curiae briefs, should this thing progress.
I just don't think Sun is stupid enough to steal someone else's IP if they believe they didn't believe they had a reasonable chance of defending their actions in court. Time will tell though....
Meanwhile, EMC must be delighted at the prospect of NetApp losing this thing. Bye-bye NetApp. But, they're probably furious though at NetApp for validating the concept that ZFS running on a commodity platform is a competitive storage platform. Because in the long run, EMC's storage business is just as much at risk as is NetApp's.
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You can't let details get in the way of press. Even bad press is STILL good press.
Re:Of course Schwartz would say that. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Of course Schwartz would say that. (Score:5, Informative)
GPL-compatibility is not a requirement [fsf.org] for free software.
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Re:Of course Schwartz would say that. (Score:5, Interesting)
Mr. Morton of Linux Kernel fame has in terms advocated that Sun should shoot the dog that is OpenSolaris and that the company should roll over and adopt Linux as its own. And of course the obvious remark that DTrace and ZFS cannot be integrated with the Linux Kernel because both projects are licensed in an incompatible fashion. It strikes me that perhaps the Linux Kernel is licensed in such a fashion that it cannot adopt said projects? After all, how can Sun be serious about Free software unless it adopts Linux. printf("World Domination!\n");
I argue that OpenSolaris is an exciting project that has opened up innovation and has greatly contributed back to the main Solaris branch in positive ways. I don't see Sun dropping this effort anytime soon. The fact that I as a customer have a more informal way of interfacing with Sun's engineers and designers is a great improvement. I have Linux to thank for this, as it challenged Sun to step up to the plate. But that doesn't mean that Sun has to be the big bad company forever and ever. I sense this animosity in the Linux community of late and I think it's unwarranted. It's some sort of elitism that makes it so that Sun's effort is in jest, or at least less worthy. In summary, it has done little for me, but serve as a turn off for Linux.
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How restrictive a license is always depends on who you apply it to... The original software author? A contributer? A redistributor? And in the case of Sun, they appear on one, restrictive, side on one product, and on the other, less restricted side, in another. So you'd have to qualify just which Sun you mean...
Re:there's more to it (Score:5, Informative)
That's borderline cynical to say. You assume with this statement that Sun deliberately picked a license to be incompatible with the GPL, for the purpose of disallowing works published under it to be integrated with the Linux Kernel tarball:
http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/faq/licensing
If you wanted a copyleft license, why didn't you just use the GPL or LGPL?
We needed an open source license that allowed files released under the license to be linked with files released under other licenses. While a license like LGPL would allow this for dynamically-linked code, we also needed to be able to release software that statically links source files available under different licenses. In addition, we wanted to allow others to add externsions to OpenSolaris with different license terms. This was only possible under a license like the MPL; however, we could not use the MPL because it is not a "template" license allowing reuse by others. Consequently, we crafted a variant of the MPL, taking the opportunity to make it a template license as a step towards reducing license proliferation for others finding themselves in a similar position.
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Re:Of course Schwartz would say that. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Sun really supports FOSS,,, (Score:5, Informative)
Typical urban legend. Propagated by a Slashdot troll no less. With Sun pushing up and coming Java projects like Looking Glass, Darkstar, Glassfish, and many others, one would think that people would have figured it out by now. But apparently not.
The real story is that after the introduction of Java, Sun started creating new Solaris components in Java. Unfortunately, they found out at the time that Java wasn't mature enough for what they were doing. So a ban was supposedly implemented on any new Solaris components being written in Java. Which (if the story is even true in the first place) was probably a wise move. I don't know if anyone remembers CDE around here, but having to launch Java just to change the volume was not a good design decision. Sun needed to either make the entire Desktop in Java (in which case most of the performance problems would disappear and the memory hit would be marginalized) or go back to using native components for all the widgets. The idea of a hybrid Desktop just wasn't going to cut it.
As it happens, Sun chose to assist the GNOME project and made that their primary desktop. Then they rebranded it as the "Java Desktop System" in one of the most confusing brand changes in history. And that is where we sit today.
<paul-harvey>And now you know... the rest of the story. Good day!</paul-harvey>
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You would have thought that they would have had some internal communication, and, you know, improved Java.
Would they? How do you figure that one?
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Sure they would. Because modern desktop Java is perceived as "slow" primarily because of slow VM launch. After the damn thing started, it feels pretty fast. To check that, try OmegaT computer aided translation program (http://www.omegat.info/). It is coded in Java and is not slow at all. It even starts reasonably fast, especially with the bundled Java runtime.
That said, I don't like Java on desktop anyway. It just looks and feels foreign everywhere.
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Well. You're right about that; as soon as you have a core JVM going and brokering everything you are basically fine.
But way back then, Swing was really slow. I.e., there were not one but two reasons for the perception of Java's slowness: 1) JVM startup, and 2) a VERY slow GUI. There were some issues with I/O as well (not unrelated), that have since been solved with the nio "new io" library.
Even today, Swi
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Would they? How do you figure that one?
I think that in theory, if everything ran under a single JVM, most of the disadvantages of Java wouldn't be an issue. A big one is JVM startup and loading time for all the base classes that everything uses. Another is the fact that Java does its own internal memory management and tends to grab a big chunk of memory from the OS and never release it, even if the Java program destroys the objects. It won't allocate more memory from the OS if it can re-use it for other Java objects, but since it never shrin
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Astounding idea. That must be why Sun, you know, improved Java. In case you haven't noticed, the Java we use today has everything from gaming services (OpenGL, OpenAL, 2D hardware acceleration, JavaSound, etc.) to nearly every Desktop service you could possibly want (Native L&F with actual hooks into the OS, Cross-platform systray support, Webstart Program Installer w/Program Menu integration, Full
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http://www.netapp.com/go/Sun%20Lawyer%20Email.pdf [netapp.com]
Re:Just another SCO wanabe? (Score:4, Interesting)
By the way when was Java fully Open Sourced? Solaris is only headed that way because Sun sees the end of their proprietary money model, not because of some great love for Open Source.
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Re:Just another SCO wanabe? (Score:5, Interesting)
What we appear to know from the opposing CEO, that Sun's CEO doesn't respond to here, is that both ZFS and NetApps' file system use a structure that NetApps has filed a patent on. So is the patent valid? Does Sun infringe? Does Sun in turn - as the NetApps CEO hints - hold patents that NetApps wants to this threat as leverage to cross-license? Ah, but Sun's CEO says Sun is happy to license the Sun patents NetApps wants - just doesn't want to sell them outright. So is this an attempt to force Sun to sell those outright in order to avoid the mess of fighting NetApps' patent claim?
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What about OpenOffice and OpenSolaris? Are you suggesting that they did something so evil that it counteracts these important projects?
It doesn't matter at all why they support free software.
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Sun seem to have a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde personality when it comes to Free software - one moment, they are trying to destroy some of it, and the next moment, they are doing something positively great and beneficial (such as moving Java to the GPL).
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See here [groklaw.net].
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Sun has been involved in Open Source before there was a term "Open Source."
NFS, OpenOffice, Java and it's associated technologies, Solaris, etc.
Put the crack pipe down.
Re:Just another SCO wanabe? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bollocks! Sun has been pushing open source and (far more important) open standards since before the religion was formed and the term was capitalised.
Ever hear of...
NFS
NIS
NIS+
Looking at a relatively short-term, recent, and (eventually) harmless contract with The Enemy and calling them 'not historically a friend of Open Source' is just more whining.
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NetApp is not the SCO here, Sun is. (Score:2, Insightful)
NetApp developed this concept into a marketable product, jumped thru all the standard legal hoops to protect it for themselves, and was just fine with letting the ope