Talk:Oracle ZFS

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should the ZFS and OpenZFS articles be merged or reorganized, and if so, in what way? If not, how do we approach the issues caused by the term "ZFS" referring to two implementations and the file system each develops (their coverage overlaps by about 99% for our purposes)? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:56, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We have 2 articles covering pretty much 3 almost-identical/overlapping "meanings" of ZFS (as seen from a Wikipedia perspective). They probably have 99% overlap. They are:

1. ZFS the filing system, covering what ZFS is and how it works, and its history as a filing system, and then two specific major implementations of ZFS:
2. Oracle's ZFS (an implementation by Oracle) and
3. illumos and OpenZFS's ZFS (a second implementation technically managed by two teams, also refers to the project/team; their implementation was originally based on Oracle's wayyy back in 2006 but has been independent for many years).

The implementations of ZFS themselves are probably about 99.9% identical for the purposes of our coverage. Once ZFS itself is described, the histories of Oracle's and OpenZFS' versions, and any differences, would probably fit into quite a modestly sized/small section however we organize these topics.

Right now the ZFS article is a bit disingenuous. Our article on OpenZFS is fine, but our coverage of ZFS in depth (where users looking up the filing system will inevitably go), is within our article at ZFS ... and that article portrays ZFS as an Oracle product, and written by Oracle, despite that for over 10 years it's been two distinct forks, one of which has nothing at all to do with Oracle since about the days of the Pentium 4.

What to do? I don't want to leave the ZFS article representing ZFS as "Oracle", because 50% of it isn't, and that 50% is also used in far more operating systems and operating system installations than Oracle's. On the other hand to merge them (which feels sensible TBH) would replace OpenZFS by either a redirect to ZFS, or a short article with two sections ("details of ZFS" + "OpenZFS" history) almost all of which would be repeated pretty much identically or in more detail in ZFS anyhow. I've patched it a bit but it still needs dealing with.

I feel like these two articles really should be fully merged from a strictly wiki perspective, and the merged article should then emphasize both variants equally and cover their history. It would add almost nothing (lengthwise) to the ZFS article. Normal handling of very similar/overlapping topics also suggests this approach. But I have a bit of a concern that this could upset some users who might potentially be quite attached to continuing to have a specific OpenZFS-specific article.

An alternative would be to redo the split, and refactor into two articles called ZFS and Implementations of ZFS, the first covering the file system, the second covering the two variants and their histories.

Hence this RFC, to seek community views on covering these topics in a single article that's neutral to both implementations, or two articles splitting the topic between ZFS itself vs specific implementations. How should these related topics be presented?

I've also specifically asked User:Dsimic's comments, as the contributor who has made the majority of edits at OpenZFS.

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 19:48, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Refactor. The article is quite long and I like the techie stuff away from the history stuff as I'm likely to be interested in one or the other at any particular point in time. Currently mulling about article naming and a couple of other issues. May be a bit of a pity to disrupt the openZFS article. Djm-leighpark (talk) 10:21, 4 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I don't feel qualified to !vote on what should be done about the two articles covering three closely-related topics. But I find it disappointing that the two articles don't each do more to make the reader aware of the existence of the other. Maproom (talk) 06:25, 14 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Refactor for the reasons mentioned by User:Djm-leighpark. I definitely agree with the position that we have an unnecessary fork here. I'd be happy with an article about ZFS which briefly mentions the history of the different implementations, and then goes into technical details, and a separate article about the history of the projects. --Slashme (talk) 06:10, 15 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Refactor, per nom. “WarKosign” 07:38, 17 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comment ...disingenuous... and that article portrays ZFS as an Oracle product, and written by Oracle -- Yes it is Oracle's product and nothing disingenuous in stating this (besides the fact it was developed by Sun and a bit of tweaking by Sun again but within Oracle). Forks have their own names. On the contrary, it is disingenous to overpomote forks, which are just tweaking of the major invention by Sun. Yes, Support refactoring everywhere where articles are long. Refactoring must be done per WP:Summary style. (1) Main article must describe the essentials (Origin, basic description, development history). (2) Technical detail common to all flavors (such as " Inappropriately specified systems" and "ZFS terminology and storage structure") is separate page. (3) Tables of forks and supported OSes is a separate page. (4) Significant forks are separate pages. (5) And of course PROVIDE THE FREAKING REFERENCES! Staszek Lem (talk) 17:57, 25 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone who contributed. I left the RFC open a while (almost 4 weeks) to get decent response levels.

As the consensus is pretty clear and it doesn't look like anyone else is planning to close it, I've closed it myself. If anyone wants to reopen and get an uninvolved close, that's fine by me.

I've started an article to address the fairly clear consensus, at History and implementations of ZFS, if anyone's interested. It'll take a bit of time, but in a while it'll be a decent article in its own right, and then the existing articles can be sorted out and link to it, completing the RFC consensus. Please do help! FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 13:05, 30 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: The dab page stays where it is. The history and implementations page has been moved to ZFS and will serve as a common article for Oracle ZFS and OpenZFS. Anything common to both can be moved to ZFS but the other two will stay as standalone articles. Oracle ZFS and OpenZFS may be moved again to more natural titles, but that can be discussed separately. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:51, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oracle ZFS → ZFS – Undiscussed controversial major move of ZFS Djm-leighpark (talk) 07:55, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This is a contested technical request. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:09, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• @Djm-leighpark: If Oracle ZFS is the dominant meaning of the initials ZFS. Else, move ZFS (disambiguation) to ZFS. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:12, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• @Anthony Appleyard ... this is all back to front. At 18 May 2020 Tomskyhaha moved ZFS to Oracle ZFS without discussion on [4]. That may have been good move, but it can also have been a rubbish move and should have been discussed in my opinion. IT may well be supported, I may even support it myself. But it is not a move I would have expected to see without discussion. ZFS (Oracle filesystem) would be a more appropriate name perhaps if it was to be moved from ZFS. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 14:04, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• @Anthony Appleyard No, Oracle ZFS is not the dominant meaning of the initials ZFS. As of 2020, Oracle has all but ceased development and marketing on its proprietary implementation, which is only available on Solaris, a platform of which Oracle has laid off all core development staff back in 2017.^[1] ZFS mostly refers to OpenZFS and its implementations on different platforms. OpenZFS is under active development. Tomskyhaha (talk) 15:31, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a better solution? I came here after trying to fix {{File systems}}, which now links to a redirect to the dab. In particular, I looked at the link under encryption (dubious, since that's not a key feature of ZFS) and found OpenZFS#Encryption to be a clone of Oracle ZFS#Encryption (just like the software it describes). Are readers best served by having two articles here, or should they be merged to form one article called ZFS which is the clear primary topic for the term? Certes (talk) 16:01, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Oppose @Djm-leighpark: My fault not opening discussion before moving. My arguments are 1. OpenZFS (forked from last public release of OpenSolaris) has diverged enough (50% code rewritten, numerous feature additions) from ZFS as developed by Oracle after 2010, so the two filesystems should be separated.^[2] 2. ZFS as the article name for the one developed by Oracle is simply not enough to signify its Oracle ownership. As one can see in previous revisions, lots of material exclusive to the open-source fork was added in this article partly due to not demonstrating a clear distinction between the two. 3. In several documents published by Oracle, ZFS has been referenced as Oracle ZFS (as in Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance and Oracle Solaris ZFS (as in Oracle® Solaris ZFS Administration Guide, Oracle Solaris ZFS File System (Introduction). Admittedly, instances of referencing the filesystem simply as ZFS also exist throughout in the latter document. This "Oracle ZFS" & "OpenZFS" problem also exists on related articles such as History and implementations of ZFS. Tomskyhaha (talk) 15:21, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging recent contributors on this page: Staszek Lem, FT2, WarKosign, Slashme, Maproom. Tomskyhaha (talk) 16:13, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Tomskyhaha: My key concern was there should have been concensus for this move prior to it being actioned; and probably should have been moved back from once there is a concern; now it hasn't been, and ignoring the "proposal" here, (Maybe I screwed up parameter order and section at [5]) the question really is: Should this article have remained under the name "ZFS", or is everyone happy with the move to "Oracle ZFS", or should the name have been ":ZFS (Oracle filesystem)", or should the name be something else? Djm-leighpark (talk) 17:34, 18 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Djm-leighpark: Perhaps we should wait for a week or two before making conclusions on the suitability of the article name. Obviously there hasn't been enough people aware of this change. Tomskyhaha (talk) 00:44, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tomskyhaha The worst thing to be done is swinging it back and forth. The fact there has been no uproar, apart from me, implies the people and Larry are not immediately happy with "Oracle ZFS", but yes, best to wait a week or two for further responses.

Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 02:47, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ZFS has almost never been referred to as Oracle ZFS. As I mentioned earlier, the name Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance is not "a storage appliance based on Oracle ZFS"; it is "an Oracle-branded storage appliance based on ZFS".

The fact that it is often referred to as "Oracle Solaris ZFS" does not support the name "Oracle ZFS".--NapoliRoma (talk) 14:00, 28 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@NapoliRoma: I agree with you on this point. The current article name is not well thought out and should be changed to something like ZFS (proprietary filesystem) or Oracle Solaris ZFS, as I've suggested in Talk:Oracle ZFS#Reorganisation.

• Oppose: Keep the status quo that each article on this topic has its own specific name: there's no article which unambiguously is the main topic for the three letter acronym ZFS. I would prefer the disambiguation page to be moved to ZFS, leaving ZFS_(disambiguation) as a redirect to ZFS, but I don't feel that strongly about that aspect. --Slashme (talk) 04:43, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Oppose. Although still registered as an Oracle trademark in some countries, the common usage of ZFS today is as a generic term which includes OpenZFS. ZFS (disambiguation) is now WP:MALPLACED and should be at the base name ZFS. Certes (talk) 14:32, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
• Support (a significant main article at "ZFS"). Well over 500 pages already link to the three-letter "ZFS", mostly expecting to find some sort of technical article about the filesystem. I suspect very few of those links are bothered in the slightest about trademarks, commercial takeovers and other squabbles; they simply want something technical at the end of the link. Feline Hymnic (talk) 15:22, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  I agree that "ZFS-type file systems" is the dominant meaning, but that topic doesn't have a single article. Certes (talk) 15:37, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Certes: (1) There are some major problems with both Oracle ZFS and OpenZFS, one of those is not drawing a clear distinction between the two filesystems. Take encryption for example: encryption was not added in Oracle ZFS until pool version 30 in 2012 (the last open-source release was version 28, released in 2011).^[3] Encryption was added^[4] in 2019 at version 0.8 (pool version 5000) in ZFS on Linux (a distribution of OpenZFS, which itself is transitioning to OpenZFS on Linux and FreeBSD^[5]) These two are incompatible in every way, yet the articles failed to differentiate the two filesystems. （2) About the duplicates in OpenZFS: Most of the technical contents in OpenZFS was copied from Oracle ZFS by myself[6] as a starting point separating them. Before that[7], OpenZFS was mostly about the project. （3） In my opinion ZFS now mostly refers to OpenZFS, as Oracle ZFS is only supported on Solaris, a platform discontinued in 2017. People are using OpenZFS on Linux, FreeBSD and other platforms, not the Oracle one. Tomskyhaha (talk) 22:42, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Feline Hymnic: As noted above, the problem is not just the trademarks: the two are technically incompatible. A ZFS pool created with later Oracle ZFS could not be used on (OpenZFS) ZFS on Linux, 50% of the code was rewritten, etc. Tomskyhaha (talk) 23:03, 19 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Tomskyhaha But how does that address the existing hundreds of articles that link to that page? Could you outline how you would propose fully resolving that, please? Thanks. Feline Hymnic (talk) 09:42, 25 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Support The proper name for the article about the filesystem ZFS should be "ZFS", and the filesystem named ZFS is still the most notable use of that initalism. "ZFS" should be the article, and "ZFS (disambiguation)" should remain the dab page.

There is no entity mentioned on Oracle's own site canonically called "Oracle ZFS". (The top hits for "Oracle ZFS" on oracle.com is for the Oracle ZFS Storage Appliance, which is a storage appliance made by Oracle based on ZFS, not a storage appliance using "Oracle ZFS".)

Reverting a unilateral name change not supported by popular usage should be non-controversial.--NapoliRoma (talk) 01:19, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is no entity mentioned on Oracle's own site canonically called "Oracle Sun", but Sun is still about our star because the Oracle brand is not the term's primary topic. Secondary sources use the term ZFS as a generic term, like Hoover (UK) or Xerox (US), whether describing implementations by Oracle or by the open source community, as here and here. Certes (talk) 09:17, 22 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• Administrator note There is no consensus to be found here. @Djm-leighpark: it would help if you could make your opinion known on this issue (rather than just complaining about the procedural irregularities). Regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:17, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

• I confess to not having followed the zfs filesystem much over the last two or three years so am not totally up to speed. As illustrated from the above arguments the move of this subject from "ZFS" (the original status quo" to "Oracle ZFS" 04:13, 18 May 2020 should probably have been pre-discussed. I could have moved it back myself at the time but that might have been a contentious decision. For most mortals the core features of zfs of both Oracle zfs and openZFS will be identical and probably coverable in one article called ZFS or ZFS (filesystem). As soon as we have both "Oracle ZFS" and "openZFS" we likely have a WP:CFORK. I apologise as my mind is elsewhere .. I have a new book, I have an article with an "Under Construction" to sort. Simple answer is per NapoliRoma .. "Reverting a unilateral name change not supported by popular usage should be non-controversial". Because of changes to he article it might unfortunately be necessary to go back to Oldid 955898691 for example as some later changes may relate refocus of the purpose of the article; however most would argue some of the content changes were good. I know its not helpful but I was really looking to go with consensus of up to date ZFS gurus on this one; and I see no consensus to go with. Realise this doesn't help much. Thankyou.Djm-leighpark (talk) 21:22, 27 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.