Re: reiser4 for 2.6.27-rc1

[Tim Tassonis <timtas@cubic.ch>]

Ryan Hope wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 13, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Tim Tassonis <timtas@cubic.ch> wrote:
>> I am in favour of renaming reiser4 exactly because it is not yet in and
>> naming a filesystem after its author is not as automatic as putting the name
>> of the singer on a record sleeve.
> 
> There is no point in renaming the filesystem, its already known as
> reiser4, it should stay that way.

One last (batch of) comment(s):

I am not advocating renaming the existing -mm implementation to 
something else so it can rot there under a different name.

I can very well live with reiser4 not making it into mainline, I never 
used reiser3 (only once for two, and after a power outage rendered the 
fs unusable and fsck did fsck all, I chose reliability over 
"performance") and am quite happy with ext3 for years and btrfs looks 
promising, too.

I was merely thinking: If reiser4 really is all that great and some 
people want it desperately in mainline, apart from fixing outstanding 
issues or convincing Al etc there are none left, they might rename it to 
reduce the controversy potential over its inclusion. I would think that 
for people desperately wanting it in, the features of reiser4 are more 
important than the name and the name is probably somewhat "difficult".

Renaming something for political reasons is certainly something you 
shouldn't do aggressively, but I would favour it in this case:
- For mainline, it's no rename, as it is not in yet.
- I don't like having the author's name as the fs's name anyway.
- It might save some unnecessary bad press .

On the other hand, I guess the real victims probably don't care and so 
it wouldn't bother me that much either.

Tim