Re: [Ext2-devel] [RFC 0/13] extents and 48bit ext3

Jeff Garzik
2006-06-09T21:41:26Z

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?

>> Rather than taking another decade to slowly fix ext2 design decisions,
>> why not move the process along a bit more rapidly? Release early,
>> release often...
>
> I don't think it will be another decade, but yes, regardless of
> whether we do a code fork or not, it will take time. Basically, you
> and the ext2 developers have a disagreement about whether or not a
> code fork will actually move the process along more quickly or not.
> Either way, we will be releasing early and often, so people can test
> it out and comment on it. Releasing patches to LKML is just the first
> step in this process.

I don't see how a larger filesystem codebase could possibly move more
quickly than a smaller codebase. You'd have twice as many code paths to
worry about.

Jeff