From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Lee Revell Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 Date: Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:44:30 -0400 Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <1093632269.837.59.camel@krustophenia.net> References: <412F7D22.5050101@namesys.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Rik van Riel , David Masover , Linus Torvalds , Diego Calleja , jamie@shareable.org, christophe@saout.de, vda@port.imtp.ilyichevsk.odessa.ua, christer@weinigel.se, spam@tnonline.net, Andrew Morton , wichert@wiggy.net, jra@samba.org, hch@lst.de, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel , flx@namesys.com, reiserfs-list@namesys.com Return-path: Received: from mustang.oldcity.dca.net ([216.158.38.3]:2255 "HELO mustang.oldcity.dca.net") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S267209AbUH0So3 (ORCPT ); Fri, 27 Aug 2004 14:44:29 -0400 To: Hans Reiser In-Reply-To: <412F7D22.5050101@namesys.com> List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Fri, 2004-08-27 at 14:27, Hans Reiser wrote: > Rik van Riel wrote: > >On Fri, 27 Aug 2004, Hans Reiser wrote: > > > >>Why are you guys even considering going to any pain at all to distort > >>semantics for the sake of backup? tar is easy, we'll fix it and send in > >>a patch. > > > >Because not everybody uses tar. Quite a few people use a > >network backup system, while others use duplicity, RPM uses > >cpio internally and big companies tend to use proprietary > >network backup suites. > > > >Breaking people's setup is something to worry about. > > > It is the tail that should not wag the dog. New semantics are going to > break backups other than dd. We need a LOT of new semantics if we > don't want to be inferior to Apple and MS. > > We should implement backup plugin methods though, so that we only have > to break things once.... Every Linux shop I know of uses amanda anyway, which will not be affected by these changes, as it uses dump/restore. restore will need minor changes, I think dump might not have to be changed at all. If your backup system can't easily handle these changes, that's a pretty good indication that it's poorly designed. Lee