New petition calls for OpenGL 4.3 and ZFS in OS X
If you've wanted ZFS and OpenGL 4.3 support in OS X, now may be your chance to request it from Apple.
Ars Technica reports that a new online petition has been created to request that Apple bring the ZFS file system to OS X, along with support for the more advanced OpenGL 4.3 libraries.
ZFS is a relatively new file system format, which Apple hinted at supporting in developer builds of OS X 10.5, and was expected to debut in Snow Leopard; however, the company ended up dropping support for the format following disagreements with Sun Microsystems. The support for ZFS has since fallen to several third-party efforts such as the open-source MacZFS project.
Though Apple's native HFS+ format has been a long-standing staple of the Mac platform, ZFS has some details that might benefit some users, including better handling of bad blocks, increased overall stability, and the ability to grow as storage demands increase.
Apple may have moved on from pursuing ZFS support in OS X, but that hasn't stopped some people from hoping that the company changes its mind. A new petition is online for those who wish to see ZFS support in OS X and hope to change Apple's mind about bringing ZFS to OS X 10.9.
In addition to ZFS support, the petition also asks Apple to implement OpenGL 4.3 support, which should help open the platform to far more graphics support in games and other 3D software. Apple has done this to some extent with the inclusion of OpenGL 3.2 in Lion and Mountain Lion (from version 2.1 in prior releases), but that still leaves the OS hanging a bit behind the rest of the industry.
So, if you would like Apple to add better graphics and file system support to OS X, consider signing the petition as well as sending Apple feedback on its OS X Feedback page.
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