Reiser4 - Evolution or Intelligent Design? [LWN.net]

Reiser4 - Evolution or Intelligent Design?

Posted Aug 5, 2006 5:11 UTC (Sat) by csawtell (guest, #986)
Parent article: Debating reiser4 - again

So it may just be that Hans Reiser's long wait is nearing its end.

I sincerely hope so. I have been using Reiser4 daily for well over a year on my ThinkPad and its USB attached external drive. To put it simply: The Reiser4 filesystem works very well indeed. Perhaps its code is not as polished as some of the other Linux Kernel packages may be, but that polishing will happen as soon as it is allowed into the evolutionary cauldron which is the Linux Kernel. Not only does Reiser4 deserve to be released from the Purgatory of Andrew Morton's tree where it's proven itself to be harmless if nothing else, but also the world deserves to have unfettered, if experimental, access to it should they so desire. Any remaining problems will either get fixed by evolution, or Reiser4 will fall by the wayside as a bad mutation, as has happened to devfs.

To play God with Reiser4 now completely belies the claim that Linux is "Evolution, not Intelligent Design". Exactly the same could be said for the suspend2 system which also works very well indeed.

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Reiser4 - Evolution or Intelligent Design?

Posted Aug 7, 2006 5:51 UTC (Mon) by csawtell (guest, #986) [Link]

umm, the world has access to reiser4
In the strict sense of the word that's true, but in practise it's not true. To the best my knowledge none of the major distributions have a module for it in the install CDs.

what's being asked for is for the kernel maintaineers to accept responsibility for maintaining it forever (well, 10 years or so, effectively forever)
You mean like devfs was?
If Reiser4 turns out to be a bad-mutation just like devfs was, it can be removed, especially if it's marked as experimental until it's more proven.

there's no right to have anything accepted into the kernel,
True.

especially when it carries a substantial maintinance burden with it.
Does it, really? I don't think Hans Reiser and his team, have plans to walk off this mortal coil as soon Reiser4 is accepted into the mainline kernel. Note that Reiser4 works exceptionally well _right now_.

When making any technical decision, it's important to keep the mind clear of influences caused by personality differences, nationalistic feelings, or earlier misunderstandings.

Removing coe from mainline

Posted Aug 7, 2006 15:58 UTC (Mon) by kpower (guest, #37136) [Link]

what's being asked for is for the kernel maintaineers to accept responsibility for maintaining it forever (well, 10 years or so, effectively forever)

You mean like devfs was? If Reiser4 turns out to be a bad-mutation just like devfs was, it can be removed, especially if it's marked as experimental until it's more proven.

When it was time to remove devfs, users were given two different upgrade paths: return to a static /dev, or use sysfs/udev In part this was possible because the kernel developers had the technical knowledge, expertise and experience with the code and problem in order to provide a solution. This despite the disappearance of the originator of devfs.

If it came time to remove reiserfs4 from the kernel, could the current or future kernel developers provide the same service to users of reiserfs4? That appears to be the motivation to have the reiserfs code comply with kernel code guidelines.

Labeling new code as experiemental obviously helps, as that indicates DO NOT USE IN PRODUCTION, but there comes a point when that label goes away. Sometimes it's not even applied initially. That is what the kernel developers reviews are attempting to address, just like most other projects have to.

Removing coe from mainline

Posted Aug 7, 2006 17:44 UTC (Mon) by job (subscriber, #670) [Link]

Backup, re-mkfs, restore. It's even easier than moving from devfs to
static /dev, where you have to make sure manually that all your nodes are
in place as all may be not be present at any given moment.