Plugin Patch (was Re: creating live virtual files by concatenation)

[Peter van Hardenberg <pvh@uvic.ca>]

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Hans,

you've said that these kinds of plugins should be something a weekend warrior 
could tackle. Our group had a real stab and dumped hundreds of man hours into 
the project with little effect. Admittedly, we were not experienced kernel 
hackers, but we were all comfortable in low-level C and quite happy to read 
source.

I request that a simple plugin be maintained as a standalone patch to Reiser4. 

Ideally, there would be a small set of these plugins demonstrating how to 
create a new plugin which operates within the existing disk structure, and 
one that extends the on-disk format in a safe way.

This would allow interested parties to see in isolation what a Reiser4 plugin 
looks like and would further provide a conceptual grappling point for the 
development of a new plugin.

I have been getting requests for just such a plugin to be added to my reiser4 
developer's wiki (http://pvh.ca/trac/wiki/reiser4) at a rate of about one 
every two months. A few successful third-party plugins would hopefully 
increase interest in this.

I realise you and your team are up to your necks in serious work on hardcore 
lowlevel material, but I believe a brief diversion of some of your resources 
would provide a significant reward. 

Right now, the cost-of-entry appears to be set too high for developers outside 
your team to approach the project.

If this information is already out there somewhere, great. I will integrate it 
in the R4DevWiki and answer questions as best I can. If anyone out there 
disagrees with me about the current difficulty of producing even a simple 
plugin, let them prove me wrong with a patch.

-pvh

-- 
Peter van Hardenberg (pvh@pvh.ca)
Victoria, BC, Canada

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