HP releases AdvFS under GPL-2

[Bayard Coolidge]

Full Disclosure: I'm an HP retiree (who left in June, 2002), and I used to work with
AdvFS while in the Tru64 UNIX TruCluster Software QC group.

It's interesting and amusing to see that AdvFS is being released under GPL-2.
I'd heard some scuttlebutt/rumors about that at around the time I retired, but at
that time, it didn't appear to be under serious consideration, and would've needed
a bit of work to tidy up some bugs, and generally clean up the code to make it
more maintainable by relative strangers.

That said, I'm wondering aloud what AdvFS would bring to the Open Source table.
I suppose that current commercial users of it would now be able to migrate/use
their AdvFS filesystems under Linux. But, does AdvFS have any features now
that it didn't 6 years ago that are superior to, say, Ext3 or Ext4, or any other
filesystems available under Linux (e.g. ReiserFS, xfs, etc.)? I'd like to see that
question answered - has someone created a feature comparion chart?

However, it's delightful to see that HP is releasing it under GPL, though. I'm
very encouraged to see that, and hope the trend will continue!

Bayard

--- On Mon, 6/23/08, Bob King <bob.king.1138 at gmail.com> wrote:
From: Bob King <bob.king.1138 at gmail.com>
Subject: HP releases AdvFS under GPL-2
To: "Greater NH Linux User Group" <gnhlug-discuss at mail.gnhlug.org>
Date: Monday, June 23, 2008, 10:00 AM

Full Disclosure: I work for HP, but not in any marketing capacity. I am frankly just curious what folks on the list think about AdvFS as an option for Linux.

Just saw this on CNet: <http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9974882-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1001_3-0-5>, although there is not that much meat to the article. I found a bit more useful data in an article on Forbes' website: <http://www.forbes.com/businesswire/feeds/businesswire/2008/06/23/businesswire20080623005546r1.html>


HP has decided to release the AdvFS under a kernel-compatible GPL-2 license with an aim on AdvFS becoming an option for Linux. There are enough folks here with AdvFS experience that I am curious what the general opinion is. I used AdvFS on several machines, but not really in a full sysadmin roll (and it was never in production). I never had much problem with it, but I was curious what others thought about it. It remains to be seen if this will be a truly open source project going forward, of course.




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