Re: state of drbd in mainline

Jens Axboe
2022-03-29T12:29:47Z

On 3/29/22 1:50 AM, Philipp Reisner wrote:
>> The complete lack of bug reports and maintainer interaction usually
>> suggests low to no use and heavy bitrot. If that is not the case
>> here that's fine, just asking..
>>
>
> FYI, feature-wise the in-tree DRBD is frozen. Maintenance only. Users,
> seeking advanced
> features switch to the out-of-tree DRBD and use other means of communication:
> Github issues, linbit's community slack channel, last not least
> linbit's ticketing system.
>
> That is why you see virtually no activity.

I've been thinking the same thing. Even if most users are out-of-tree, you'd
still expect to see at least some reports on the list. A few followup
questions:

- Why aren't the drbd maintainers responding to posted patches? They seem
to simply be ignored, and I'm left to pickup the trivial ones that look
fine to me. In-kernel drbd appears largely unmaintained, and has been for
years.

- Even if out-of-band communication is used for in-kernel users of drbd,
that doesn't result in any patches or fixes that should go upstream?

- If there's zero activity for in-kernel drbd, all users are using the
out-of-tree version?

As far as I can tell, drbd upstream is stone cold dead, and has been for
years. Why shouldn't it just get removed? Is it just bait to get people
to use an out-of-tree version?

--
Jens Axboe