Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4

viro
2004-08-25T20:42:40Z

On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 01:22:55PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
>
> On Wed, 25 Aug 2004, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> >
> > For one thing _I_ didn't decide about xattrs anyway. And I still
> > haven't seen a design from you on -fsdevel how you try to solve the
> > problems with files as directories.
>
> Hey, files-as-directories are one of my pet things, so I have to side with
> Hans on this one. I think it just makes sense. A hell of a lot more sense
> than xattrs, anyway, since it allows scripts etc standard tools to touch
> the attributes.
>
> It's the UNIX way.

Not if you allow link(2) on them. And not if you design and market your
stuff as a general-purpose backdoor into kernel. Note how *EVERY* *DAMN*
*OPERATION* is made possible to override by "plugins". Which is the reason
for deadlocks in question, BTW.

Don't fool yourself - that's what Hans is selling. Target market: ISV.
Marketed product: a set of hooks, the wider the better, no matter how
little sense it makes. The reason for doing that outside of core kernel:
bypassing any review and being able to control the product being sold (see
above).

Shame that it got an actual filesystem mixed in with the marketing plans
and general insanity...