From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Andrew Morton Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 03:24:57 -0700 Message-ID: <20040826032457.21377e94.akpm@osdl.org> References: <20040824202521.GA26705@lst.de> <412CEE38.1080707@namesys.com> <20040825152805.45a1ce64.akpm@osdl.org> <112698263.20040826005146@tnonline.net> <1453698131.20040826011935@tnonline.net> <20040825163225.4441cfdd.akpm@osdl.org> <20040825233739.GP10907@legion.cup.hp.com> <20040825234629.GF2612@wiggy.net> <1939276887.20040826114028@tnonline.net> <20040826024956.08b66b46.akpm@osdl.org> <839984491.20040826122025@tnonline.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Errors-To: flx@namesys.com In-Reply-To: <839984491.20040826122025@tnonline.net> List-Id: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: Spam Cc: wichert@wiggy.net, jra@samba.org, torvalds@osdl.org, reiser@namesys.com, hch@lst.de, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, flx@namesys.com, reiserfs-list@namesys.com Spam wrote: > > > > > Spam wrote: > >> > >> Yes, for example documents, image files etc. The multiple data > >> streams can contain thumbnails, info about who is editing the file > >> (useful for networked files) etc. Could be used for version handling > >> and much more. > > > All of which can be handled in userspace library code. > > > What compelling reason is there for doing this in the kernel? > > > Because having user space tools and code will make it not work with > everything. Keeping stuff in the kernel should make the new features > transparent to the applications. > > Applications that support the new features will benefit, all others > will continue to work without destroying data. Sorry, but that all sounds a bit fluffy. Please provide some examples. (Generally, getting all of userspace to agree on a particular library is socially hard [*], but I don't see that as a reason for putting the functionality into the kernel) [*] Example: where's the library to manipulate /etc/whatever.conf? [**] [**] yes, I know about gconf.