Comment by cryptonector

> Why do you think ZFS on MacOS would have helped in any significant way?

It would have bought Sun mind-share. In that time frame Sun was trying really hard to re-acquire mind-share it had lost to Linux due to the non-deal with Google, the brief cancellation of Solaris x86, etc. OpenSolaris was an attempt to rebuild mind-share. Was rebuilding mind-share enough? No, no way, but it was a start.

It could have led to Apple acquiring Sun, say.

> AFAIK, and I may be wrong, but Apple doesn't have a history relying on OEMs for their software, especially something as critical as operating systems. Am I wrong? Was it different back then?

Apple did the work of integrating ZFS into OS X. They believed in it. Steve Jobs wanted indemnification in light of the NetApp lawsuit. Jonathan wouldn't agree to it. Giving it could have been a betting-the-company event, but Sun needed that sort of thing.