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Ken Preslan sent out a mail to the Linux kernel mailing list announcing that Red Hat has released the GFS under the GPL, open-sourcing the cluster file system. They're now targetting towards getting GFS included in the mainstream kernel.
From the Red Hat GFS page:
"Red Hat GFS allows Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers to simultaneously read and write to a single shared file system on the SAN, achieving high performance and reducing the complexity and overhead of managing redundant data copies. Red Hat GFS has no single point of failure, is incrementally scalable from one to hundreds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers, and works with all standard Linux applications."
Read on for the announcement.
From: Ken Preslan [email blocked] To: Linux Kernel Mailing List [email blocked] Subject: GFS cluster filesystem re-released Date: 2004-06-24 22:53:49 Hi, I'd like to announce that Red Hat has re-released the GFS cluster filesystem and its related infrastructure under the GPL. The different projects that make up the infrastructure are: GFS - shared-disk cluster file system CLVM - clustering extensions to the LVM2 logical volume manager toolset CMAN - general-purpose symmetric cluster manager DLM - general-purpose distributed lock manager CCS - cluster configuration system to manage the cluster config file GULM - alternative redundant server-based lock/cluster manager for GFS GNBD - network block device driver shares storage over a network Fence - I/O fencing system The source code and patches for 2.6 are available at http://sources.redhat.com/cluster/. 2.4 source should show up early tomorrow. We're looking for people help us work on this project so we can eventually get it included into the Linux kernel. Comments, suggestions, patches, and testers are more than welcome. Thanks.
just great,
Nice to see moving that big piece of software to GPL. Anybody can speculate what will be next?
I hope that will be included in Debian soon.
btw, has microsoft something comparable?
Debian...
sure it will be included
they will catch the progress in a few years...
If you prefer a much up to date Debian/stable try...
www.backports.org
btw, how long is currently the cycle of a Redhat (not Fedora) distro?
Red Hat Enterprise Cycle
According to Red Hat, RHEL follows a 12-18 month release cycle, with each release being promised support for a minimum of 5 years.
If you prefer...
...newer software then whats in Debians "stable", try "testing" (or "unstable").
RE: If You Prefer...
Knoppix is an excellent choice
First unofficial debian packages
Angelo Ovidi from XFDeb project released the first unofficial deb kernel packages supporting GFS on a 2.6.8.1 vanilla kernel and all the set of utilities for GFS clustering (GULM, CCS, etc).
The kernel was patched using the most recent CVS stuff from RedHat and it seems stable . I have tested on some server. It has GNBD integrated in a monolithic way and it's ok.
You can find all the stuff at http://xfdeb.sourceforge.net/ and in particular:
Kernel:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=47560&package_id=1...
GFS related packages:
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=47560&package_id=1...
Martin
Kernel 2.6.9
Also version based on kernel 2.6.9 (compile name Halloween) is out.
Martin
What is microsoft? I couldn't
What is microsoft? I couldn't find it on Distrowatch...
GFS on Debian
Let's just (please!) wait that GFS is quite stable, clean and tested to be included in 2.6, and then, sure, you'll see it on Debian and any other distro.
I guess that's the end of OpenGFS?
Anyone heard from the OpenGFS guys on their reaction to this news?
dead anyawy
I think the project has been dead anyway...last release was in '03 and the same for the news post. Maybe the projects actually merged instead of just collapsing?
I dunno, I didn't see any news so I dunno what to think
Nice one RedHat
It's nice to see that RedHat live up to their claims that they believe in the open source model.
This is clearly a big move from them, and they are willing to open-source it and state that they want the help of the community to get it into the kernel.
It shows that they are willing to put their developers work on the line, they are willing to show that their work ( and the money invested in the time and effort ) is subject to the same rules as everyone elses
not surprising, look at novell
it's not surprising that red hat open sourced gfs.
this will be a continuing trend in the future: companies will release non-core components (or "competency") of their business model as open source.
i hate to attach this reply to a red hat story, because this is not a new trend with red hat (they've always practiced, preached, and delivered open source), but you could just as easily replace "red hat" with "novell" or "ibm" and you see the trend that's building in the industry.
novell purchased suse and then open sourced yast. suse has never ever hinted at open sourcing yast. why? change of heart? no. yast was a core component of suse; it's what differentiated them from other distros, and that was what suse was all about: selling a distro. novell on the other hand is in the business of selling edirectory, zenworks, etc and support. selling a distro is NOT a core component, just a (linux) platform that integrates well with their for-sale products, so they don't mind giving away yast. and once yast is open sourced and adopted by the community, the community will (hopefully) improve yast, lightening novell's burden of maintaining it.
ibm does the same thing: they are a service and hardware company. they open source A LOT of stuff because when 99% of your revenue comes from hardware and services, who cares about the 1% lost from open sourcing some software. and actually, the 1% lost is really no longer lost as once you open source it, sure you can't really make a profit from it, but you (hopefully) don't have to spend as much money ("expenses" for the bean counters) maintaining it.
sistina could never have open sourced gfs, because that was probably a large source of income for them (besides the support of it). but red hat is not in the business of selling file systems, but selling support (for their distro), so they open source the file system. they and (eventually) the community maintain it, they market themselves as being the foremost experts and implementers of gfs, and they sell more copies of rhel.
So what's your point?
I don't get it. This is a logical thing which happens when any company gets acquired. What's not core to the buyer get's shifted to the side to languish. Fortunately, Redhat is a significant player in OSS and Novell has gotten religion so we actually get to see these projects opened to the community instead of sitting inside someone's IP vault to rot.
As to what IBM is up to well you guessed they are becoming a more open company the likes of which we have never seen before. And yes they are open sourcing many of their efforts internally since it buys them a lot.
let me type more slowly for ya
my point?
the parent post acted as if surprised by red hat's behavior.
my post was to explain that this isn't surprising, definitely not for red hat, but something we are going to see more of. not just from the expected players (ie red hat), but also from the historically proprietary folks (novell, ibm).
i then proceed to explain why it made (smart) business sense, and why we're going to be seeing more of it.
and, no, ibm is doing the same thing red hat and novell are doing: releasing non-core compentencies to the community. you separate ibm out (at least grammatically) as if they are different than red hat and novell.
First distro with GFS
Released today, see Always Current Lineox Enterprise Linux Gets Global File System (GFS) Support.
GFS 2.4 Source and Patches
Have the GFS Source and Patches for the 2.4 kernel been released yet? If not, whats the planned release date?
Thanks.
may not
as what I see,it's only released for RHEL and kernel 2.6.