future of xfs, oss.sgi.com after sgi purchased?

future of xfs, oss.sgi.com after sgi purchased?

[Linda A. Walsh]

Not one to beat about the bush, but curious from a practical sense,

If sgi is being bought by another company, is there any idea about the plans
for the xfs file system or the source code on 'oss.sgi.com'?

I'm _guessing_ that there is some interest in users and developers to keep xfs 
alive after the 'sgi' moniker is purchased, but that begs the question about the 
new company wanting to support the old 'sgi.com' websites including
oss.sgi.com.

Is there a danger of oss.sgi.com suddenly being yanked offline with little to no 
warning, such that community members should start keeping up-to-date, or is it 
already mirrored?  I'm assuming that the current source code repository only 
exists on oss.sgi.com?  Should it be mirrored on some other external open-source 
site?  sourceforge? google? mozilla?

Is completely worthless to discuss new, desired features in some of the utils? 
Will it be possible to support the xfs codebase if its development no longer 
becomes necessary to sgi (or its parent company)?

*sigh*,
-linda


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Re: future of xfs, oss.sgi.com after sgi purchased?

[Eric Sandeen]

Linda A. Walsh wrote:
> Not one to beat about the bush, but curious from a practical sense,
> 
> If sgi is being bought by another company, is there any idea about the plans
> for the xfs file system or the source code on 'oss.sgi.com'?
> 
> I'm _guessing_ that there is some interest in users and developers to keep xfs 
> alive after the 'sgi' moniker is purchased, but that begs the question about the 
> new company wanting to support the old 'sgi.com' websites including
> oss.sgi.com.
> 
> Is there a danger of oss.sgi.com suddenly being yanked offline with little to no 
> warning, such that community members should start keeping up-to-date, or is it 
> already mirrored?  I'm assuming that the current source code repository only 
> exists on oss.sgi.com?  Should it be mirrored on some other external open-source 
> site?  sourceforge? google? mozilla?

While I doubt that oss.sgi.com would abruptly vanish, there are
nonetheless already git repos on kernel.org, which are sometimes even
ahead of what's on oss.sgi.com ... xfs.org has a lot of content as well.
 Mailing list archives exist at various other sites.

There are also ftp mirrors around, though I think that's less important.

> Is completely worthless to discuss new, desired features in some of the utils? 
> Will it be possible to support the xfs codebase if its development no longer 
> becomes necessary to sgi (or its parent company)?

If you look at commit logs or carefully read the mailing list over the
last 6 months or so, I think you'll find that xfs maintenance and
development is not wholly dependent on contributions from sgi employees.

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=history;f=fs/xfs;hb=HEAD

-Eric

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Re: future of xfs, oss.sgi.com after sgi purchased?

[Felix Blyakher]

On Apr 15, 2009, at 4:23 PM, Linda A. Walsh wrote:

> Not one to beat about the bush, but curious from a practical sense,
>
> If sgi is being bought by another company, is there any idea about  
> the plans
> for the xfs file system or the source code on 'oss.sgi.com'?

The rumors of the death of xfs team at SGI are a little bit
premature.

> I'm _guessing_ that there is some interest in users and developers  
> to keep xfs alive after the 'sgi' moniker is purchased, but that  
> begs the question about the new company wanting to support the old  
> 'sgi.com' websites including
> oss.sgi.com.
>
> Is there a danger of oss.sgi.com suddenly being yanked offline with  
> little to no warning,

I doubt it'll happen in any circumstances.

> such that community members should start keeping up-to-date, or is  
> it already mirrored?  I'm assuming that the current source code  
> repository only exists on oss.sgi.com?

There is nothing on oss.sgi.com xfs-wise that is not in Linus' tree.

> Should it be mirrored on some other external open-source site?   
> sourceforge? google? mozilla?

With git you don't really need a true mirror. And official clones of
both kernel and the userland xfs already exist on kernel.org.

> Is completely worthless to discuss new, desired features in some of  
> the utils? Will it be possible to support the xfs codebase if its  
> development no longer becomes necessary to sgi (or its parent  
> company)?

I hope that wouldn't happen. Though, while it'll be loss for xfs
in this unlikely scenario, I think, there is enough critical mass
outside of sgi to continue support and move forward xfs.

Felix
xfs maintainer, still at sgi

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Re: future of xfs, oss.sgi.com after sgi purchased?

[Linda A. Walsh]

Eric Sandeen wrote:
> Linda A. Walsh wrote:
> > If sgi is being bought by another company, is there any idea about the plans
> > for the xfs file system or the source code on 'oss.sgi.com'?
>
> While I doubt that oss.sgi.com would abruptly vanish, there are
> nonetheless already git repos on kernel.org, which are sometimes even
> ahead of what's on oss.sgi.com ... xfs.org has a lot of content as well.
>  Mailing list archives exist at various other sites.
---
    Would hope not -- but have seen companies pull real bonehead maneuvers.

I can understand that for kernel work, but what about the xfs utils? 
(dump/restore et al.)
They have had a pretty static feature set from what little I've noticed, but I 
may just not be
getting updates.  I don't know if it would be of any benefit, but apparently the 
sgi xfsdump used to be multi-threaded?  (Just as a random example).   Thanks for 
allaying some concerns.


Felix Blyakher wrote:
>> I'm _guessing_ that there is some interest in users and developers to 
>> keep xfs alive after the 'sgi' moniker is purchased, but that begs the 
>> question about the new company wanting to support the old 'sgi.com' 
>> websites including oss.sgi.com.
>>
>> Is there a danger of oss.sgi.com suddenly being yanked offline with 
>> little to no warning,
> 
> I doubt it'll happen in any circumstances.
---
    There have been precedents at sgi.  Other systems from sgi pulled on a 
policy change:
Internal news, external employee web-pages (reality being yanked).  All based on
some policy or organizational change that gave very little advance warning.

> I hope that wouldn't happen. Though, while it'll be loss for xfs
> in this unlikely scenario, I think, there is enough critical mass
> outside of sgi to continue support and move forward xfs.
---
    I'd like to think so, but for whatever reason(s), it's seems to be one of 
the larger
(in terms of lines of code) filesystems -- making more difficult to support -- 
not that
those lines aren't there for good use/good features.  Just that XFS was well 
developed
when it was being ported too linux.  Was no easy task.    I'd love to see XFS 
ported to the
Windows environment -- and then give MS some competition for their NT file system.
Since Fat32 has more significantly important limitations, Can't always use a 
FAT32 as a
common files system between OS's. And MS isn't exactly open about NTFS.

> Felix
> xfs maintainer, still at sgi
----
Congrats...on making this far...

-l

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Re: future of xfs, oss.sgi.com after sgi purchased?

[Eric Sandeen]

Linda A. Walsh wrote:
> Eric Sandeen wrote:
>> Linda A. Walsh wrote:
>>> If sgi is being bought by another company, is there any idea about the plans
>>> for the xfs file system or the source code on 'oss.sgi.com'?
>> While I doubt that oss.sgi.com would abruptly vanish, there are
>> nonetheless already git repos on kernel.org, which are sometimes even
>> ahead of what's on oss.sgi.com ... xfs.org has a lot of content as well.
>>  Mailing list archives exist at various other sites.
> ---
>     Would hope not -- but have seen companies pull real bonehead maneuvers.
> 
> I can understand that for kernel work, but what about the xfs utils? 

Again, just look at the git logs.

-Eric

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Re: future of xfs, oss.sgi.com after sgi purchased?

[Russell Cattelan]

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Linda A. Walsh wrote:
> Not one to beat about the bush, but curious from a practical sense,
>
> If sgi is being bought by another company, is there any idea about
> the plans
> for the xfs file system or the source code on 'oss.sgi.com'?
>
> I'm _guessing_ that there is some interest in users and developers
> to keep xfs alive after the 'sgi' moniker is purchased, but that
> begs the question about the new company wanting to support the old
> 'sgi.com' websites including
> oss.sgi.com.
It is probably to soon to actually speculate as to what is going to
happen with oss.sgi.com once the sale of SGI happens.

But is it probably worth while to understand oss has been primarily a
volunteer effort for probably the last 5 years or more.
There is nobody at SGI officially responsible for oss, most of the
system maintenance is handled by Trevor Hurst (who does work at sgi)
and myself (who does not), and the efforts of other external
volunteers. The system itself is 2 processor Altix owned and housed by
SGI in one of their data
centers in Chippewa Falls Wisconsin.

The XFS project also has xfs.org, which I also maintain independent of
SGI systems and I will continue to do so for as long
as XFS is alive and kicking.
>
> Is there a danger of oss.sgi.com suddenly being yanked offline with
> little to no warning, such that community members should start
> keeping up-to-date, or is it already mirrored?  I'm assuming that
> the current source code repository only exists on oss.sgi.com?
> Should it be mirrored on some other external open-source site?
> sourceforge? google? mozilla?
Most things (git, cvs, mail list/archives etc)  are being mirrored at
xfs.org as a precautionary measure against any sort of outage for
quite some time now.

I highly doubt there will be any sudden "yanking" of systems.

>
> Is completely worthless to discuss new, desired features in some of
> the utils? Will it be possible to support the xfs codebase if its
> development no longer becomes necessary to sgi (or its parent company)?
Well that is up to you I suppose, but given the number of external
people willing to keep XFS going I suspect you will be able
to find more than enough conversation about future development.

>
> *sigh*,
> -linda
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> xfs mailing list
> xfs@oss.sgi.com
> http://oss.sgi.com/mailman/listinfo/xfs

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Re: getting changes (fixes or enhancements) to xfs-tools

[Linda A. Walsh]

Eric Sandeen wrote:
> Linda A. Walsh wrote:
>> I can understand that for kernel work, but what about the xfs utils? 
> Again, just look at the git logs.
> -Eric
----

    I understand you want people to see the work that has gone into the
kernel, but telling someone to search through 1327 entries just to find
an answer of 'no', seems a bit ...something.

     FWIW: I copied all 1327 entries to a text file and searched for
any string "xfs[a-z]" to search for any comments about utility changes.
Only strings found were for the daemons that are run.

     Now that I've determined that the xfs utils are not in the kernel
source tree (I wouldn't have expected them to be), maybe I can more
be less indirect and ask: Who is managing the the xfs_utils, Where are
they kept and What is the procedure for trying to get changes (fixes
or enhancements) to them?   (I prefer direct questioning, but too many
people, even in the engineering/sw community,  find it rude or abrupt,
so it's not usually my 1st choice).

In other words, does one:

(I) suggest new ideas and if the keeper(s) likes them, they are
     implemented and redistributed?
   OR
(II.1) suggest new ideas and see if keeper(s) approve of 'project' so
     one can then go and
     (i) implement the changes in a local version, and then?
     	(a) check them in?
           OR
         (b) submit for approval so they can be approved for
             inclusion (or fixing any found problems)
   OR
(III) just go off and implement the code, then come back and say, hey,
     here are my changes for this idea, and just expect to be greeted
     with open arms?  ;^/

---
(I hope I got the indentation and syntax correct in that, English
syntax isn't always the easiest language to express nested options
in...:-))

     I'm trying to get clear on process.  If they are in the kernel
tree, there may be no way for me to get from A->B, othewise, I'm
trying to find out where one might have hope of bouncing ideas that
might get implemented or that if sufficiently positively received
might spure someone to try implementing the changes themselves (and
possibly (and possibly get in completely over their head....or not.)

:-)
thanks!
-linda

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Re: getting changes (fixes or enhancements) to xfs-tools

[Eric Sandeen]

Linda A. Walsh wrote:
> Eric Sandeen wrote:
>> Linda A. Walsh wrote:
>>> I can understand that for kernel work, but what about the xfs utils? 
>> Again, just look at the git logs.
>> -Eric
> ----
> 
>     I understand you want people to see the work that has gone into the
> kernel, but telling someone to search through 1327 entries just to find
> an answer of 'no', seems a bit ...something.

You originally asked, as far as I understood it, whether xfs can survive
if sgi does not.

I suggested that you read the list and look at the changelogs, and see
how much work is being done on xfs from -outside- sgi, as this may help
to answer your question.

>      FWIW: I copied all 1327 entries to a text file and searched for
> any string "xfs[a-z]" to search for any comments about utility changes.
> Only strings found were for the daemons that are run.
> 
>      Now that I've determined that the xfs utils are not in the kernel
> source tree (I wouldn't have expected them to be), maybe I can more
> be less indirect and ask: Who is managing the the xfs_utils, Where are
> they kept and What is the procedure for trying to get changes (fixes
> or enhancements) to them?   (I prefer direct questioning, but too many
> people, even in the engineering/sw community,  find it rude or abrupt,
> so it's not usually my 1st choice).

Changes happen as they always have; patches are sent to the xfs
development mailing list.  There are git trees on kernel.org as well as
on oss.sgi.com, though I'm not sure the exact details matter too
terribly much here.  It all ultimately, eventually flows to a tarball on
oss.sgi.com.

http://oss.sgi.com/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=xfs/xfs.git;a=summary
http://oss.sgi.com/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=xfs/cmds/xfsprogs.git;a=summary
http://oss.sgi.com/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=xfs/cmds/xfsdump.git;a=summary
http://oss.sgi.com/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=xfs/cmds/dmapi.git;a=summary
http://oss.sgi.com/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?p=xfs/cmds/xfstests.git;a=summary

http://git.kernel.org/?p=fs/xfs/xfs.git;a=summary
http://git.kernel.org/?p=fs/xfs/xfsprogs-dev.git;a=summary
http://git.kernel.org/?p=fs/xfs/xfsdump-dev.git;a=summary
http://git.kernel.org/?p=fs/xfs/dmapi-dev.git;a=summary
http://git.kernel.org/?p=fs/xfs/xfstests-dev.git;a=summary

ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/cmd_tars/

> In other words, does one:
> 
> (I) suggest new ideas and if the keeper(s) likes them, they are
>      implemented and redistributed?

You could try that, though there is always the resource issue.  Many
people are full of good ideas; fewer people can implement them :)

> (II.1) suggest new ideas and see if keeper(s) approve of 'project' so
>      one can then go and
>      (i) implement the changes in a local version, and then?
>      	(a) check them in?

no, you can't check them in upstream, the maintainers do that ...

>            OR
>          (b) submit for approval so they can be approved for
>              inclusion (or fixing any found problems)

yes, send them to the list as has always been done.

> (III) just go off and implement the code, then come back and say, hey,
>      here are my changes for this idea, and just expect to be greeted
>      with open arms?  ;^/

subject to review of course.  It'd always be better to float the plan on
the list first before you go off and do a bunch of work.

> ---
> (I hope I got the indentation and syntax correct in that, English
> syntax isn't always the easiest language to express nested options
> in...:-))
> 
>      I'm trying to get clear on process.  If they are in the kernel
> tree, there may be no way for me to get from A->B, othewise, I'm
> trying to find out where one might have hope of bouncing ideas that
> might get implemented or that if sufficiently positively received
> might spure someone to try implementing the changes themselves (and
> possibly (and possibly get in completely over their head....or not.)

Basically, everything starts on the list, and ends in the git trees or
tarballs.  This will continue to be true even if, for any reason, sgi
were to disappear, we'd just have potentially new URLs and fewer resources.

-Eric

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Re: getting changes (fixes or enhancements) to xfs-tools

[Felix Blyakher]

On Apr 16, 2009, at 1:36 PM, Linda A. Walsh wrote:

> Eric Sandeen wrote:
>> Linda A. Walsh wrote:
>>> I can understand that for kernel work, but what about the xfs utils?
>> Again, just look at the git logs.
>> -Eric
> ----
>
>   I understand you want people to see the work that has gone into the
> kernel, but telling someone to search through 1327 entries just to  
> find
> an answer of 'no', seems a bit ...something.

Eric responded about xfs utilities, which are not in the kernel.

>    FWIW: I copied all 1327 entries to a text file and searched for
> any string "xfs[a-z]" to search for any comments about utility  
> changes.
> Only strings found were for the daemons that are run.

Wrong log.

>    Now that I've determined that the xfs utils are not in the kernel
> source tree (I wouldn't have expected them to be), maybe I can more
> be less indirect and ask: Who is managing the the xfs_utils,

Me, as well as Christoph in a (cloned) kernel.org tree.

> Where are
> they kept and

on oss as tarballs:

ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/cmd_tars/xfsprogs-3.0.0.tar.gz
ftp://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/cmd_tars/xfsdump-3.0.0.tar.gz

The tarballs release announcement was posted to this list.

Or in the git repositories on oss:

git://oss.sgi.com/xfs/cmds/xfsprogs.git
git://oss.sgi.com/xfs/cmds/xfsdump.git

and kernel.org:

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/xfs/xfsprogs-dev.git
git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/fs/xfs/xfsdump-dev.git


> What is the procedure for trying to get changes (fixes
> or enhancements) to them?   (I prefer direct questioning, but too many
> people, even in the engineering/sw community,  find it rude or abrupt,
> so it's not usually my 1st choice).
>
> In other words, does one:
>
> (I) suggest new ideas and if the keeper(s) likes them, they are
>    implemented and redistributed?

You mean implemented by maintainer? Others?
Sure, they well may be, but it would depend on priorities.

>  OR
> (II.1) suggest new ideas and see if keeper(s) approve of 'project' so

Yes, it prudent to get the nod from others about goodness
of the idea before implementing it.

>    one can then go and
>    (i) implement the changes in a local version, and then?
>    	(a) check them in?

into your local tree ...

>
>          OR
>        (b) submit for approval so they can be approved for
>            inclusion (or fixing any found problems)

That would be the right way to get it into the tree.
See Documentation/SubmittingPatches. The idea applies to
patches in the userland as well. Actually, we treat
utilities exactly the same way as the kernel xfs.

>  OR
> (III) just go off and implement the code, then come back and say, hey,
>    here are my changes for this idea, and just expect to be greeted
>    with open arms?  ;^/

That may well be the case. But it also could be just the opposite.
So, it's prudent to check the idea first.

> ---
> (I hope I got the indentation and syntax correct in that, English
> syntax isn't always the easiest language to express nested options
> in...:-))
>
>    I'm trying to get clear on process.  If they are in the kernel
> tree, there may be no way for me to get from A->B, othewise, I'm
> trying to find out where one might have hope of bouncing ideas

I guess, you're already aware about the xfs mailing list.
Post them there.

Hope that helps.
Felix

> that
> might get implemented or that if sufficiently positively received
> might spure someone to try implementing the changes themselves (and
> possibly (and possibly get in completely over their head....or not.)
>
> :-)
> thanks!
> -linda
>
> _______________________________________________
> xfs mailing list
> xfs@oss.sgi.com
> http://oss.sgi.com/mailman/listinfo/xfs

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