From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: mjt@nysv.org (Markus Törnqvist) Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 Date: Thu, 26 Aug 2004 10:53:48 +0300 Message-ID: <20040826075348.GT1284@nysv.org> References: <112698263.20040826005146@tnonline.net> <1453698131.20040826011935@tnonline.net> <20040825163225.4441cfdd.akpm@osdl.org> <20040825233739.GP10907@legion.cup.hp.com> <20040825234629.GF2612@wiggy.net> <1093480940.2748.35.camel@entropy> <20040826044425.GL5414@waste.org> <1093496948.2748.69.camel@entropy> <20040826053200.GU31237@waste.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Nicholas Miell , Wichert Akkerman , Jeremy Allison , Andrew Morton , Spam , 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 Return-path: list-help: list-unsubscribe: list-post: Errors-To: flx@namesys.com To: Matt Mackall Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20040826053200.GU31237@waste.org> List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org On Thu, Aug 26, 2004 at 12:32:00AM -0500, Matt Mackall wrote: > >What it breaks is the concept of a file. In ways that are ill-defined, >not portable, hard to work with, and needlessly complex. Along the >way, it breaks every single application that ever thought it knew what >a file was. It breaks the concept of a file. In ways that offer more versatility, challenge the imagination to make even better progress and keeps Linux competing with competitors who are implementing this stuff as we speak. I for one would truly welcome the coming of thumbnails and descriptions in picture files, because I have a real-life project going on where that would be extremely handy to have in the actual file. Were I any richer, I'd pay Namesys to have this work for me :) >Find some silly person with an iBook and open a shell on OS X. Use cp >to copy a file with a resource fork. Oh look, the Finder has no idea >what the new file is, even though it looks exactly identical in the >shell. Isn't that _wonderful_? Now try cat < a > b on a file with a >fork. How is that ever going to work? Then I guess OS X ships a broken implementation of cp, yes? On the cat example, what if cat < a > b simply copies the "main stream" and not the metadata, as a feature. The key being, "as a feature" The metadata streams could get file descriptors of their own OR another program, streamcat or something, could be written to compensate. >I like cat < a > b. You can keep your progress. With all due respect, I hope not too many people agree with you :) -- mjt