<div dir="ltr"><div>I would add one feature about ZFS that is super useful and that is the ability to replicate datasets to a remote server. I don't know if btrfs has a similar feature, but the ability to have a backup server offsite and just setup a cron job to replicate it was awesome for DR. It makes backing up your snapshots very very easy.</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 4:55 AM Ian Kelling <<a href="mailto:iank@fsf.org">iank@fsf.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><br>
Ben Scott <<a href="mailto:dragonhawk@gmail.com" target="_blank">dragonhawk@gmail.com</a>> writes:<br>
<br>
> Hi all,<br>
><br>
> We haven't had a really good flamewar ^W discussion on here in far too long...<br>
><br>
> SUMMARY<br>
><br>
> Btfrs vs ZFS. I was wondering if others would like to share their<br>
> opinions on either or both? Or something else entirely? (Maybe you<br>
> just don't feel alive if you're not compiling your kernel from<br>
> patches?) Especially cool would be recent comparisons of two or more.<br>
><br>
> I'll provide an info dump of my plans below, but I do so mainly as<br>
> discussion-fodder. Don't feel obligated to address my scenario in<br>
> particular. Of course, commentary on anything in particular that<br>
> seems like a good/bad/cool idea is still welcome.<br>
><br>
> RECEIVED WISDOM<br>
><br>
> This is the stuff every article says. I rarely find anything that goes deeper.<br>
><br>
> - ZFS has been around/stable/whatever longer<br>
> - btfrs has been on Linux longer<br>
<br>
<br>
> - btfrs is GPL, ZFS is CDDL or whatever<br>
> - Licensing kept ZFS off Linux for a while<br>
> - ZFS is available on major Linux distros now<br>
<br>
Those points aren't quite right. Nothing has changed regarding<br>
licensing. <a href="https://www.fsf.org/licensing/zfs-and-linux" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.fsf.org/licensing/zfs-and-linux</a><br>
<a href="https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/feb/25/zfs-and-linux/</a> . Tldr: cddl<br>
is gpl incompatible. The only thing that changed is that Ubuntu decided<br>
to ship the zfs kernel module, they are ignoring the license, and there<br>
hasn't been any public license enforcement yet, but it could come from<br>
ZFS or linux copyright holders. Other than ubuntu, zfs for linux comes<br>
without cooperation from the major distros or upstream linux, and thus,<br>
if you are using your distro's kernel, it will sometimes break when you<br>
upgrade. ZFS doesn't benefit from the linux's code review, continuous<br>
integration, collaboration, etc. So, a good reason to use BTRFS over ZFS<br>
on linux is simply to support copyleft licensing in general and support<br>
upstream linux. For all your technical goals, I think BTRFS will do<br>
fine, I've been using it for many years now.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Ian Kelling | Senior Systems Administrator, Free Software Foundation<br>
GPG Key: B125 F60B 7B28 7FF6 A2B7 DF8F 170A F0E2 9542 95DF<br>
<a href="https://fsf.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://fsf.org</a> | <a href="https://gnu.org" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://gnu.org</a><br>
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</blockquote></div>