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[News] NetApp Attacks Free Software With Software Patents Again

  • Subject: [News] NetApp Attacks Free Software With Software Patents Again
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:32:37 +0100
  • Followup-to: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • User-agent: KNode/4.4.2
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NetApp threatens Coraid over sales of open-source ZFS technology

,----[ Quote ]
| Storage startup Coraid may face legal 
| action from NetApp if the company does not 
| cease plans to sell the Coraid EtherDrive 
| Z-Series NAS appliance based on the open-
| source Zettabyte File System (ZFS).
| 
| Coraid issued a letter to its customers 
| this morning in which CEO Kevin Brown 
| announced the company has temporarily 
| suspended the general availability of the 
| EtherDrive Z-Series. 
`----

http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/storagenetworking/article.php/3891426/NetApp-threatens-Coraid-over-sales-of-open-s

NetApp shakes fist at sprat supplier over ZFS

,----[ Quote ]
| NetApp has threatened Ethernet and ZFS 
| storage supplier Coraid with implied legal 
| action unless it stops selling its 
| EtherDrive Z-series NAS. Coraid has 
| buckled under the threat and temporarily 
| withdrawn the product.
| 
| The back story here is that NetApp sued 
| Sun in 2007 for infringing its patents 
| with the ZFS file system product which it 
| used in its 7000 storage system and which 
| it made available to the open source 
| community. Sun counter-sued NetApp to 
| destroy the validity of the patents in 
| question by showing that there was prior 
| art - existing IP - rendering the patents 
| null and void.
| 
| The two legal actions were combined, with 
| the case ongoing in a northern California 
| court. Oracle has inherited the case with 
| its acquisition of Sun. A letter from 
| Coraid's CEO, Kevin Brown, to Coraid users 
| and partners says NetApp and Oracle are 
| trying to resolve the dispute out of 
| court.
| 
| Now we see a significant hardening of 
| NetApp's stance as it directly attacks the 
| open source community using ZFS with this 
| offensive against Coraid. This could be 
| part of a negotiating tactic against 
| Oracle.
`----

http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2010/07/06/netapp_coraid/


Related:

NetApp's Point of View on the Sun Litigation - An Update

,----[ Quote ]
| I vote for a new system, frankly. This one, as the NetApp-Sun litigation is
| just the most recent proof, is seriously broken.
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081026210721976


Current Status of the Sun/NetApp Patent Lawsuit

,----[ Quote ]
| The patent office currently has a backlog of 730,000 patents, and they canât
| hire fast enough to close the gap. Waiting could take years. The legal system
| isnât always fast, but it can be. When NetApp agreed to relocate the case to
| California, we did it on the condition that weâd get to trial relatively
| quickly.
`----

http://blogs.netapp.com/dave/2008/10/current-status.html


Sun picks away at NetApp's patent claims

,----[ Quote ]
| The war-of-words between Sun Microsystems and NetApp over patent infringement
| claims wages on, while legal means to settle the matter have failed.
|
| The two companies tried to sit down this week for a settlement conference,
| but judging by Sun's response of publicly boasting that it has removed at
| least one of NetApp's patents from the litigation and declaring the legal
| scuffle a war between ideologies â we'd say the mediation wasn't entirely a
| success.
`----

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/27/sun_versus_netapp_take_four_million/


Sun fires another shot at NetApp

,----[ Quote ]
| But perhaps the harshest accusation Sun leveled against NetApp in its latest
| filing came in the opening paragraph of the suit. Chiding NetApp for only
| spending about $390 million on research and development last year and for
| holding âonly approximately 200â patents, Sun declared: âIndeed, rather than
| innovate, NetApp builds on the innovation of othersâ and âNetApp â uses
| extensive amounts of open source code developed by others, without
| contributing any innovation of its own.â
`----

http://storage.blogs.techtarget.com/2008/03/27/sun-fires-another-shot-at-netapp/


Update on the Sun/NetApp ZFS patent litigation

,----[ Quote ]
| I received this update from Sun Microsystems on Tuesday on the ongoing ZFS
| patent litigation with NetApp. While colored by its source, the news seems
| positive for Sun (and, given the importance of ZFS, for the open-source
| development community). Sun has succeeded in getting the venue changed to
| California and it appears that its public request for examples of prior art
| have yielded fruit.    
`----

http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9835693-16.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=TheOpenRoad


Sun plans to countersue NetApp

,----[ Quote ]
| Consequently, "Later this week, we're going to use our defensive portfolio to
| respond to Network Appliance, filing a comprehensive reciprocal suit. As a
| part of this suit, we are requesting a permanent injunction to remove all of
| their filer products from the marketplace, and are examining the original NFS
| license--on which Network Appliance was started," Schwartz said.    
`----

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9803882-39.html


ZFS Puts Net App Viability at Risk?

http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/harvesting_from_a_troll


NetApp/Sun lawsuit seen as open-source test case

,----[ Quote ]
| NetApp contends that Sun's ZFS file system technology, which was donated to
| the OpenSolaris.org open-source community earlier this year, infringes on
| seven NetApp patents.  
`----

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9034562


Sun calls NetApp's blog bluff...with open source...in a blog

,----[ Quote ]
| I know nothing about the validity of either side's patent claims. Only a
| judge (or, more likely, a settlement) will elucidate either claim. But I have
| watched Microsoft respond to open source with patent FUD, and I'm willing to
| believe that others will fight back in this same way. I don't know that
| NetApp is--Hitz argues pretty persuasively that there were other reasons
| involved--but I do believe that any company that relies on an old way of
| selling its software needs to respond to the open-source threat.      
|
| Patent suits are one way to do that. An ugly, and ultimately futile way, but
| a way nonetheless.
`----

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9772580-7.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=NewsBlog


NetApp + Sun = legal havoc

,----[ Quote ]
| Now, this is enough to me. I don't fucking care who is infringing whose
| patents. It's more and more clear that patents (all kind of patents!) don't
| do anything to the benefit of the public. They're not good for the humanity
| at large, but only to lawyers.  
|
| And when you see how two major IT actors are trying to make money from
| lawsuits instead of making profit from the technologies they're supposed to
| develop, you have all the rights in the world to think that the current
| Establishment is broken.  
|
| Because it is broken. You can see it every day with U.S.-based companies.
`----

http://beranger.org/index.php?page=diary&2007/09/06/08/55/23-netapp-sun-legal-havoc


A few thoughts on Sun and NetApp

,----[ Quote ]
| According to Raven Zachary at the451 Group, âHitz told me that this case is
| about NetApp and Sun, not the open source community that has emerged around
| ZFS, and NetApp does not intend to go after the ZFS community.â  
|
| Until it does so (if it ever does so), to paint its legal claims as an attack
| on open source seems to be to be unfair.
`----

http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/2007/09/a_few_thoughts.html


ZFS on Linux: It's alive

,----[ Quote ]
| The project is working, with several users running and even booting from a
| ZFS volume. Correia has not undertaken any performance tuning yet, and
| one sysadmin, Chris Samuel, has posted benchmarks that clock only about
| half the speed of another Linux filesystem, XFS.
`----

http://www.linuxworld.com/news/2007/061807-zfs-on-linux.html#6285522977769458795


Linux: ZFS, Licenses and Patents

,----[ Quote ]
| A recent discussion on the lkml examined the possibility of a
| Linux implementation of Sun's ZFS. It was pointed out that the
| file system is released under the GPL-incompatible CDDL, and
| that Sun has filed numerous patents to prevent ZFS from being
| reverse engineered.
`----

http://kerneltrap.org/node/8066


Sun's Schwartz: High-Performance Computing Will Be Pervasive

,----[ Quote ]
| Schwartz said that Sun will continue to ramp up development efforts in its
| storage sector, centering on the Thumper X4500 serverâa 48-drive unit with a
| capacity of 24TB per box.  
|
| "Thumper utilizes the ZFS," Schwartz said, "and we'll be taking the message
| out to the open-source community more and more as time goes on. In fact,
| we've seen the open-source community grow and accelerate its activity. That's
| where the future of development lies."    
`----

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2179550,00.asp


Sun's Chief Open Source Officer Talks Patents

,----[ Quote ]
| The open-source community is very vocal about software patents.
| Sun owns lots of them. Isn't that a contradiction for Sun to
| claim to be an open-source community member yet own software patents?
|
| Not at all. Most companies engaging in free and open-source
| software hold software patents?even Red Hat. If you neglect
| patent filing, you risk various perils including others filing
| for patents on the same ideas and being unable to trade
| portfolios when an aggressor comes calling. What matters is
| not whether you hold them but what you do with them.
`----

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2135483,00.asp?kc=EWRSS03129TX1K0000616
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