Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266244AbUIORCw (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:02:52 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S266539AbUIORCT (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:02:19 -0400 Received: from kinesis.swishmail.com ([209.10.110.86]:275 "EHLO kinesis.swishmail.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266643AbUIORBN (ORCPT ); Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:01:13 -0400 Message-ID: <414876AD.6060404@techsource.com> Date: Wed, 15 Sep 2004 13:06:53 -0400 From: Timothy Miller MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Hans Reiser CC: Linus Torvalds , David Masover , Horst von Brand , Pavel Machek , Jamie Lokier , Chris Wedgwood , viro@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk, Christoph Hellwig , linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Alexander Lyamin aka FLX , ReiserFS List , Alexander Zarochentcev Subject: Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 References: <200408311931.i7VJV8kt028102@laptop11.inf.utfsm.cl> <41352279.7020307@slaphack.com> <41356321.4030307@namesys.com> <413578C9.8020305@namesys.com> In-Reply-To: <413578C9.8020305@namesys.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1687 Lines: 39 I'm probably not the first to suggest this idea, and it's probably not a very good idea, but here's my idea anyhow: You have a file "/usr/bin/emacs" with a metadata property in the overlaid namespace "/usr/bin/emacs/[[..]metas/]icon" According to some, this could cause some confusion. Howabout instead: You have a file "/usr/bin/emacs" with a metadata property in a slightly separated namespace "/metas/usr/bin/emacs/icon" This has the advantage of still having the metadata in the filesystem namespace but without the confusion of having files-as-directories, ambiguity of filename, backup issues, etc. This is the reverse of having the namespaces overlaid with a "/nometas" view which is separate. Furthermore, you can split things further like this: You have a file "/usr/bin/emacs" with an automatically-generated metadata property that you don't want to back up in "/autometas/usr/bin/emacs/modification_date" and a manually generated metadata property that you MAY want to backup in "/staticmetas/usr/bin/emacs/icon". This is inelegant, I know. But if we do this, we can add the extra features of reiser4 without confusing existing apps or having to modify them to support the new functionality. Furthermore, you can easily hide the extra features by not mounting the meta top-level directories (assuming they're mounted like separate filesystems, rather than just magically appearing there, which is okay too). - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/