time for (another) change?

Posted Sep 27, 2005 2:21 UTC (Tue) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link]

... is that merging a filesystem is unlike merging a device driver in non-trivial ways. The filesystem used has a dramatic effect on system functionality, in ways that even a networking driver does not. Moreover, merging a filesystem that agrees with the design principles and specs of the operating system is much easier than merging revolutionary works like reiser4, because the compliant filesystem necessitates orders of magnitude fewer changes to the way everything else expects a filesystem to work. The "Just adopt it already" position ignores the fact that reiser4 expects things that the kernel will natively disagree on in use, and the kernel expects things that reiser4 will screw up. Work is ongoing; we wouldn't be having this debate if reiser4 was being rejected.

Hans refuses to acknowledge the fact that this whole argument is really him winning kernel support for reiser4, since accomodations *are being made* to do so. Full inclusion will happen when everything is kernel-maintainable and functionally stable. Experimental features belong in -mm until those two criteria are met.

Also, just to say it plainly, namesys will not support 4 past the release of 5, just as they don't support 3 now that 4 is out. Hans Reiser does not want non-namesys-employed hands working in "his" codebase, and so protests efforts to change his work to conform to a) kernel code requirements, and b) user-desired features and bugfixes added in a completely kosher fashion (a la GPL). Until Hans thinks like the rest of the GPL world thinks, namesys products will continue to fail the expectations of F/OSS -- and especially Linux kernel -- programmers. That's at least half of the adoption hurdle, ignoring the equally applicable ad hominem attacks -- and if you think social graces shouldn't matter, tell that to your boss/loan officer/HR manager next time you see him/her/them.