Re: reiser4 plugins

Horst von Brand
2005-07-01T03:57:43Z

Kevin Bowen <kevin@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > might be nice to have on exclusively one-user, isolated machines, like
> > "keep /my/ annotations/icon/application name/whatever with the file's
> > data", but that break down in multiuser (even serially, one user after the

> If this is really the core of your (and the rest of the reiser-
> obstructionist crowd's) objection to the file-as-directory concept, then
> you just haven't thought it through thoroughly enough. Ignore for the
> moment the case of system-wide or network-wide shared data,

I.e., something like 90% of the use of Linux here. OK.

> and think
> about it just limited to a user's home directory, and the storage and
> organization of actual *data* (as opposed to system files).

Who is to say what is "data" and what is "system files"? And if you are
limiting yourself to /user/ data, why not have the /user/ decide how they
want to organize it, and give them the tools?

> The desire
> amongst users for ubiquitous metadata is very real - the current wave of
> "desktop search" products and technologies demonstrates this -

Just like each previous claim "this /must/ be the next cool technology!",
also called later the "dotcom crash"...

> but
> search is really only the lowest-hanging fruit of this new way of
> looking at data. Application-layer solutions like Beagle,

That works without screwing up the whole system, AFAIU.

> Google Desktop
> Search et al allow for querying on metadata, but actually *acting* on
> the results of those queries requires that they be exposed via first
> class primitives which can be manipulated with arbitrary tools, not via
> some proprietary userland api which only one tool ever actually
> implements.

Could you please explain in plain english? The only part I get out is
"propietary API", and I don't see anybody advocating such here.

> As to the case of system-wide shared files, there is already a mechanism
> to prevent users from inappropriately annotating files that don't belong
> to them: file permissions.

And who says that a normal user isn't allowed to annotate each and every
file with its purpose or something else? I can very well imagine a system
in which users (say students in a Linux class) want to do so... on a shared
machine. Or users having a shared MP3 or photograph or ... collection, with
individual notes on each. Or even developers wanting to annotate source
code files with their comments, but leave them read-only (or have them
under SCM).

> If you're sysadmining a multiuser reiser4
> box, and your users are able to modify the metadata of files they don't
> own, then you go to sysadmin purgatory.

Bingo! And thus goes much of the supposed advantage of this nonsense.

[I see that /opponents/ are accused here of lack of imagination, while I
see that the /proponents/ lack imagination... or perhaps just real-world
experience.]

> > other way; OpenOffice /has/ structured files, XML inside zipped files,
> > Java also uses zip files for its structuring needs, etc), or are ideas
> > that

> And as a Java developer, I can tell you that the wide consensus is that
> this solution is half-assed and insufficient for both developers and
> users needs. In fact, I believe there is currently a JSR in progress to
> develop a more sophisticated Java packaging model.

Presumably based on ReiserFS 4, which then has to be ported to whatever
platform you want to run Java on ASAP? Great for you! Wait a bit, and
you'll get what you want then, even across the board!
--
Dr. Horst H. von Brand User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile Fax: +56 32 797513