debian-main

Another ZFS departure

Another ZFS departure

Jeff Bonwick is leaving Oracle.This is a huge event, because Jeff has been one of the main innovators in operating system technology during his tenure at Sun. While you may know him best for ZFS, he's also the inventor of the slab allocator, which revolutionized memory management when it was created. (And now, pretty much every modern system uses some variation of the slab allocator.)And he's not just an Oracle VP. Jeff has made integrations into Solaris' ZFS code base on an ongoing basis. This is a guy that has led with actual actions and innovation, backed by code, rather than some boffin who's risen to management and no longer contributes. At some level, he's the model for the kind of technologist I aspire to be.With so many innovators leaving (and yes, there are other key players in flight), its going to be very interesting to see how Oracle is able to continue to be a thought leader in the OS technology that they've acquired.One the one hand, its really a shame to see to much of the heart and soul of the Solaris engineer core slowly disintegrating.On the other hand, I think illumos may be the place where Solaris innovation happens, more so than at Oracle, even sooner than I previously expected.

[Planet Illumos]