From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Anton Altaparmakov Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:03:04 +0100 Sender: aia21@hermes.cam.ac.uk Message-ID: <1093510983.23289.6.camel@imp.csi.cam.ac.uk> 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> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Spam , Linus Torvalds , reiser@namesys.com, hch@lst.de, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, lkml , flx@namesys.com, reiserfs-list@namesys.com Return-path: list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Errors-To: flx@namesys.com To: Andrew Morton In-Reply-To: <20040825163225.4441cfdd.akpm@osdl.org> List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Thu, 2004-08-26 at 00:32, Andrew Morton wrote: > Spam wrote: > > > > > In other words, if reiserfs does something special, we should make > > > standard interfaces for doing that special thing, so that everybody can > > > do it without stepping on other peoples toes. > > > > Agreed that would be the best. But how much time and effort will it > > be > > Zero. > > We can add these new features tomorrow, as reiser4-only features, with a > plan in hand to generalise them later. > > -->>__if__<<-- we think these are features which Linux should offer. Please don't forget that if the reiser4 features are merged as they are now, then we will likely be stuck with the API reiser4 chooses. There will be tools that will rely on it springing up no doubt. Moving the reiser4 features to VFS later is fine and good, but what if the VFS doesn't want the same API for those features? Either we would have to allow reiser4 to continue providing the old API even though the VFS now provides a new, shiny API or we would have to break all existing API users on reiser4. Things like "I rebooted into the latest kernel and my computer failed to boot because essential app FOO failed to access the reiser4 API - Help!" spring to mind. Yes, I know I am painting a rather black picture here and I know you might well say "screw apps", its been done plenty of times in Linux kernel development before... Best regards, Anton -- Anton Altaparmakov (replace at with @) Unix Support, Computing Service, University of Cambridge, CB2 3QH, UK Linux NTFS maintainer / IRC: #ntfs on irc.freenode.net WWW: http://linux-ntfs.sf.net/, http://www-stu.christs.cam.ac.uk/~aia21/