A filesystem corruption bug breaks loose

Kernel bugs can have all kinds of unfortunate consequences, from inconvenient crashes to nasty security vulnerabilities. Some of the most feared bugs, though, are those that corrupt data in filesystems. The losses imposed on users can be severe, and the resulting problems may not be noticed for a long time, making recovery difficult. Filesystem developers, knowing that they will have to face their users in the real world, go to considerable effort to prevent this kind of bug from finding its way into a released kernel. A recent failure in that regard raises a number of interesting questions about how kernel development is done.

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