Re: shiftfs status and future development

[Seth Forshee <seth.forshee@canonical.com>]

On Sat, Jun 16, 2018 at 12:54:38AM +1000, Aleksa Sarai wrote:
> On 2018-06-14, Seth Forshee <seth.forshee@canonical.com> wrote:
> > I wanted to inquire about the current status of shiftfs and the plans
> > for it moving forward. We'd like to have this functionality available
> > for use in lxd, and I'm interesetd in helping with development (or
> > picking up development if it's stalled).
> > 
> > To start, is anyone still working on shiftfs or similar functionality? I
> > haven't found it in any git tree on kernel.org, and as far as mailing
> > list activity the last submission I can find is [1]. Is there anything
> > newer than this?
> 
> James Bottomley demoed the current status of shiftfs at the last Linux
> Plumbers' Conference. Personally, it looked like some of the motivations
> behind why we needed a shiftfs (and what it should look like) were lost
> over time, and the result is that the patchset mutated and has
> effectively stalled development for over a year (as far as I know it
> hasn't been posted again in over a year, and nobody is carrying it in
> their tree).

That's my impression too, which I was attempting to confirm with my mail
:-)

> I agree with Serge that if we want to restart its development someone
> should write down what the requirements and goals are to avoid having a
> patchset which mutates over many review cycles.

I agree, though some evolution during review is inevitable. I just
responed to Serge with some of our requirements, if you have some to add
I'd love to see them.

Thanks,
Seth