Apple discontinues ZFS project for Mac OS X

Apple has posted a notice on its ZFS open-source project page indicating that the project has been terminated, as quoted below:

The ZFS project has been discontinued. The mailing list and repository will also be removed shortly.

ZFS is an advanced file system developed by Sun that had been ported to Mac OS X and released in 2007 as an open-source project on Apple’s Mac OS Forge collaboration site. ZFS had been rumored to become the default file system for Mac OS X Leopard, but ended up appearing with only limited read-only capabilities.

Apple continued to show interest in ZFS when they included the technology in its early product description pages for Snow Leopard Server, although the information was subsequently removed from Apple’s site and support for ZFS was not included in either Snow Leopard or Snow Leopard Server upon release.

Rumor was that the lack of ZFS support in Snow Leopard was caused by licensing issues with Sun, leaving the future of ZFS uncertain; although Sun’s pending acquisition by Oracle left open the possibility that the technology could be revisited by Apple in the future. Apple’s discontinuation of the ZFS project, however, suggests that the company may have given up hope of achieving decent licensing terms for the technology, and has instead redirected its resources elsewhere.

Via [TUAW]