ZFS has just been incorporated to the FreeBSD code base ([1], [2]). And it has been previously reported that ZFS will be in Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) ([1], [2]). These are good signs for ZFS. In the world of Open Source, adoption of a technology by an outside community or project is a clear indicator of technical excellence (although not always - sometimes licensing and other issues get in the way). Closer to home, I see clear technical excellence in the large adoption of the JAXB RI (JBoss, TmaxSoft, Geronimo, WebLogic Server, Jonas, many others) and the increased adoption of the JAX-WS RI (WebLogic Server, TmaxSoft) and Grizzly (Jetty).

There are other GlassFish modules that have noticeable outside adoption including JSF, JSP and TopLinkEssentials. Projects like jMaki and Phobos are generating a lot of buzz but, to my knowledge, are not yet incorporated into outside projects. GlassFish, in toto, is also being adopted: it is included in several OpenSolaris distributions and in Ubuntu, and also in NetBeans (we are very open to expanding that list with additional distributions; if you are interested, just contact us).

I hope that, over time, we will have more and more adoption of GlassFish projects. And, where appropriate, we may end up adopting external projects and resist the NIH syndrome; our goal is technical excellence for the users of GlassFish.

Note: When I have a moment I'll add links to the above assertions; in the meantime just do a search at TheAquarium.