I suspect an unmentioned goal of this project is eventually to make the installation of OpenZFS on Linux (and other *ix operating systems) quick and simple, legally running around Oracle's license restrictions.[1]
Unsurprisingly, the list of supporting companies[2] does not include Oracle, which surely isn't happy about this project.
--
[1] The source code upon which OpenZFS is based was provided by Oracle (Sun) under the CDDL license, which prevents OpenZFS from being distributed in binary form as part of the Linux kernel.
- How do I maintain this? Since ZFS is outside the mainline kernel, how do I know whoever compiles the ZFS packages will keep track of (distribution)'s kernel package?
The ZFS packages are not fully pre-compiled. The ZFS packages use the dkms system where the kernel specific parts are recompiled when the kernel changes. This greatly reduces the maintenance work and is a system that has been in use by other out of tree kernel modules for a decade. Its not perfect, but it does largely reduce the distribution specific maintenance burden.
Of course, when a new kernel version comes out, ZFS may have to make adjustments to support it and ZFS may lag a little bit. However, currently there are significant resources being dedicated to ZFS on Linux development and packaging and for the last 18 months they've kept up pretty well.
It isn't perfect. I wish that ZFS could be in the linux source tree. While I saw ZFS on linux being available, I wasn't ready to try it until last year. However, third party file systems do have a long tradition, such as AFS, vxfs, and numerous SAN file systems. ZFS on Linux seems to be doing very well.
I don't think it has much to do with the license, CDDL is based on Mozilla Public License after all (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Development_and_Distrib...). The license being different to the kernel prevents distribution of kernel images with inbuilt ZFS support, but this can be worked around by installing it later, just as they already do with proprietary GPU drivers.
It's a great pity more ZFS advocates are taking this as an opportunity to get better acquainted with FreeBSD.
I've been running FreeBSD on my home server for about a decade now -even before ZFS- and have loved it. But I used to run Linux VMs on top of it. However it's only recently that I've decided to go fully FreeBSD on it, using jails instead of hardware virtualisation. I honestly can't understand why I waited so long to do so. It's proven to be a far more elegant solution for what I needed.
While I do still run Linux on my desktop and work with Solaris and linux as my day job; FreeBSD seems a vastly overlooked alternative these days, which I think that's a great pity. its stable, proven and dead to administrate. But each to their own I guess.
My story is somewhat similar to yours, and I also regret not giving FreeBSD a try sooner.
I guess hardware has a lot to do with many people's reluctance in using FreeBSD, and in that regard I was lucky that my netbook was compatible right out of the box so I didn't experience any of the issues others had.
I have an Acer Aspire One, ZG5.
Intel Atom N270 1.6Ghz
1 GB RAM
160 GB hdd
I bought it about 5 years ago for a whopping $99, but it has an issue with shutting down about 30 to 50 seconds after POST.
I figure that I got my $99 worth out of it, and have acquired a new HP Envy 15, which is, unfortunately, equipped with a Broadcom 4313 wireless adaptor, thus I haven't yet taken the time to attempt getting the WiFi card to work in FreeBSD, but I intend to do so soon. (time permitting)
I also agree. I run a pretty heterogenous set of servers, mostly linux, with a single FreeBSD machine using ZFS with about 100TB on it, and I really like it. There's a lot of missing conveniences from Linux, but overall FreeBSD seems better thought out and orchestrated. It also has some really cool technologies that receive little fanfare, while newly arrived linux equivalents get hailed as the "next best thingβ’".
While I haven't used OpenIndiana specifically, I have used OpenSolaris and a great number of it's forks, and honestly I didn't like them much (preferring pure Solaris).
However even that aside, I couldn't see myself prefering OpenIndiana; FreeBSD is a very different kind of 'UNIX'. While SunOS does historically have some roots in BSD, it's still very much a SysV-style UNIX; and as much as I use SysV-like systems daily for work, my true love is for BSD.
I thought this too, but I think the real issue is that they want to extend and add new features to ZFS and the original structure of the project isn't appropriate. The SPL interface isn't ideal either.
I think the Debian install is almost as easy as that - download a .deb package and install it, and it pulls in and installs and compiles everything else.
Unsurprisingly, the list of supporting companies[2] does not include Oracle, which surely isn't happy about this project.
--
[1] The source code upon which OpenZFS is based was provided by Oracle (Sun) under the CDDL license, which prevents OpenZFS from being distributed in binary form as part of the Linux kernel.
[2] http://www.open-zfs.org/wiki/Companies