From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: [Ext2-devel] [RFC 0/13] extents and 48bit ext3 Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 17:53:14 -0400 Message-ID: <4489EDCA.5040808@garzik.org> References: <4489D36C.3010000@garzik.org> <20060609203523.GE10524@thunk.org> <4489EAFE.6090303@garzik.org> <87ac8matr2.fsf@graviton.dyn.troilus.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: Theodore Tso , Gerrit Huizenga , Andrew Morton , ext2-devel@lists.sourceforge.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Christoph Hellwig , cmm@us.ibm.com, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org Return-path: Received: from srv5.dvmed.net ([207.36.208.214]:33190 "EHLO mail.dvmed.net") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1030544AbWFIVxU (ORCPT ); Fri, 9 Jun 2006 17:53:20 -0400 To: Michael Poole In-Reply-To: <87ac8matr2.fsf@graviton.dyn.troilus.org> Sender: linux-fsdevel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-fsdevel.vger.kernel.org Michael Poole wrote: > Jeff Garzik writes: > >> Theodore Tso wrote: >>> And I'd also dispute with your "weren't really suited for the original >>> ext2-style design" comment. Ext2/3 was always designed to be >>> extensible from the start, and we've successfully added features quite >>> successfully for quite a while. >> Although not the only disk format change, extents are a pretty big >> one. Will this be the last major on-disk format change? > > You keep making "straw that broke the camel's back" type arguments > without saying why this particular straw (rather than the other > compatibility-breaking features that are already in ext3) is the one > that must not be allowed. Is it a matter of taste, or is there some > objective threshold that extents cross? Yes, it's not a small change to the on-disk format. If you write tools that read an ext3 filesystem, you won't be able to read file data at all, without updating your code. That's a much bigger deal than say 32-bit uids. Jeff