Re: [RFC 0/13] extents and 48bit ext3

[Valerie Henson <val_henson@linux.intel.com>]

On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 05:11:52PM -0600, Andreas Dilger wrote:
> On Jun 09, 2006  15:15 -0700, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > 
> > We're continuing to nurse along a few basically-15-year-old filesystems
> > while we do have the brains, manpower and processes to implement a new,
> > really great one.
> > 
> > It's just this feeling I have ;)
> 
> I think many people share this feeling (me included), hence the linux
> filesystem meeting next week...  The problem is that even getting a
> half-decent disk filesystem is many years of work, and large disks are
> here before then.  The ZFS code took 10 years to get to its current state,
> I understand, so I don't anticipate we will get there overnight.

I helped bring up the first instance of ZFS running as a kernel module
on Halloween, 2002 (one fun week staying up all night hacking with
Jeff Bonwick).  The earliest code was written in either 2001 or just
possibly 2000 - so 5-6 years in elapsed time.  On the other hand, in
terms of total programmer staff-years put into ZFS, it's on the order
of 25 years.

I'm not sure either what the best route to the next big Linux file
system is - start from scratch or reuse a lot of code.  One of the
things I want to talk about at the workshop is creative reuse of
existing code, a la the continuation inode idea.

-VAL