From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Horst von Brand Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 19:58:40 -0400 Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <200408272358.i7RNweGh002703@localhost.localdomain> References: Return-path: In-Reply-To: Message from Spam of "Thu, 26 Aug 2004 13:15:47 +0200." <1453776111.20040826131547@tnonline.net> List-Id: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: Spam Cc: Andrew Morton , 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 said: > Andrew Morton said: [...] > > For example, some image file formats already support embedded metadata, do > > they not? > Yes, JPEG, TIFF and PNG files for example. But, if you modify any of > these with an application that doesn't support the extensions then > you will loose them. As you will each time you muck around with your files-are-directories. Nothing new there. > Also, you are thinking _very_ narrowly now. There are thousands of > file formats. Implementing the support for meta-data/ streams/ > attributes in the kernel will make it possible to use this > generically for all files. So the _kernel_ has to know about thousands of formats, just in case it some blue day it comes across a strange file? Better leave that to the applications. You will _not_ be able to define a single format for extra data about the file, there will be differing extra data for different users (do you suggest a root-only file with special writable pouches for "graphical icon for the file" for each user on the system?!), so the idea in itself is doomed from the start. > I use this in Windows quite much. Then use it and be happy. No need to screw up Linux for that. > I put information description > fields for lots of different files. These descriptions are then > searchable etc. I could use the command prompt to copy the files and > the descriptions would still be there. The descriptions might make sense to _you_, _now_. No guarantee they make any sense (or are in the least useful) for other users on your system, and I might want them in arabic or some such. The descriptions might make no sense to you in a couple of years. > Secondly, do you expect file managers like Nautilus and Konqueror to > support every piece of file format on the planet so they could read > information directly from the documents? That's their (self-selected) job, yes. -- Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 654431 Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 654239 Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 797513