Robin Harris, who has worked in the data storage field for as long as I've been alive, is discussing the mysterious absence of ZFS in Mac OS 10.6 over at his blog StorageMojo. He reconsiders his original stance, that there were migration or integration timeline issues, in favor of it being a battle between licensing preferences.

Harris speculates that Sun Microsystems, the folks behind ZFS, may have pushed for a Common Development and Distribution License (CDDL) and patent indemnification which turned Apple off the deal. Harris emphasizes that the incompatibility between CDDL and GPL was one of the issues for Apple, but certainly not the only one. (How could it be when there are CDDL elements such as DTrace in Snow Leopard already?)

Patent indemnification could play a larger role as the manner in which Sun might waive patent claims against Apple for the use of ZFS wouldn't actually truly protect Apple from third-party claims, but that too is speculation.

What we do know is that Apple promised us ZFS a year ago and didn't put out this month. Be it a lovers' spat with Sun, licensing issues, or a larger legal picture, we're still optimistic that we'll see ZFS down the road, particularly with the changes going on as part of Sun being taken over by Oracle.

Check out Harris' thoughts and tell us yours. Why did Apple go back on something they were so proud to announce? And when will this broken promise be made up to us? [Storage mojo]

Partially contradicting earlier (but no less tenuous) reports that the interface would be ported to other Android phones, MobileBurn is now claiming an HTC representative told them that "licensing restrictions" would prevent the company's customized, proprietary interface from arriving on "with Google" branded phones—which include the T-Mobile G1 (Dream) and MyTouch 3G (Magic).

At first glance this sounds petty and strange, but oh, goddamn it, there's a precedent. From May:

We've just learned that HTC is including a built-in Microsoft Exchange client on the HTC Magic devices that lack the "with Google" branding... According to HTC's Eric Lin, the "with Google" phones will sport the stock Android smartphone operating system, while the non-Google branded phone will include HTC developed "special sauce."

I'm sure there's a sound legal reason for this, but that doesn't stop it from being as annoying as all hell. It looks like this one might be up to you, homebrewers. [MobileBurn--Thanks, Alan!]

Preview — Allows users to freely preview a limited number of pages of in-copyright works to help users decide if the book is right for them to buy. Generally, out-of-print books will be available for preview, and in-print books will not unless the rightsholder decides to activate previews through their participation in this settlement or through the Book Search Partner Program.

Consumer Purchase — Offers individual users the ability to purchase access to view an entire in-copyright book online. The rightsholder may set the price or allow the price to be set by a Google algorithm.

Institutional Subscription — For academic, corporate, and government organizations. Gives members of the institution full access to in-copyright, out-of-print books.

Free Public Library Access — Authorizes free, full-text, online viewing of in-copyright, out-of-print books at designated computers in U.S. public and university libraries at no charge to the library or the reader, with added revenues to the rightsholders through per page printing fees.

Future Services — The agreement allows for other services and uses, such as Print-On-Demand, Consumer Subscription and others, to be agreed in the future.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like consumers outside of educational institutions or libraries will see many freebies. There's always a catch!

In terms of what book puchases will cost consumers, "Google will automatically set and adjust prices through an algorithm designed to maximize revenues for the book" though rightsholders will still have a final say. So in other words, we don't know yet, and it will vary. [Google and Authors Guild via Slashdot]

Ken Fisher at Ars thinks Microsoft is trying to prevent users from using the same copy of Vista on successive computers over the next (probably) several years. In other words, every time you build a new computer, rather than moving Vista over from your old machine, they want you to buy a new copy.

Microsoft hinted at this late last year with the licensing scheme they initially unveiled. Of course, it was so blatantly restrictive, the backlash on the net was deafening, and Microsoft quickly reneged, seemingly back to a more traditional Windows licensing setup. Since this setup more or less repeats the effects of the recanted scheme, it's possible we'll see a similar uproar over the next week. – Matt Buchanan

Vista "upgrade" drops compliance checking, requires old OS to install [Ars Technica]

This agreement gives them the right to modify the code to adapt it for smartphones, Cylons, or whatever else they decide to run the OS on. This means that when Palm makes a next-gen OS, it can shove in parts of Garnet to keep compatibility with current Palm apps so you won't have to throw away everything you already love. – Jason Chen

FAQ [Access via Palm Info Center]