Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S267839AbUIPISd (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Sep 2004 04:18:33 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S267840AbUIPISd (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Sep 2004 04:18:33 -0400 Received: from hermine.aitel.hist.no ([158.38.50.15]:47885 "HELO hermine.aitel.hist.no") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S267839AbUIPIS0 (ORCPT ); Thu, 16 Sep 2004 04:18:26 -0400 Message-ID: <41494D6D.2090704@hist.no> Date: Thu, 16 Sep 2004 10:23:09 +0200 From: Helge Hafting User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 0.7.3 (X11/20040830) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Timothy Miller CC: Hans Reiser , 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> <414876AD.6060404@techsource.com> In-Reply-To: <414876AD.6060404@techsource.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 2308 Lines: 57 Timothy Miller wrote: > 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" > And the problem with such a "solution" is mv /usr/bin/emacs /usr/bin/old-emacs Do this with an ordinary fs, and the /metas/usr/bin/emacs/icon won't move with it. Now metas might might not be an ordinary fs, so perhaps the move happens automatically there, but if so it will be unexpected. > 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). Having to go up to root and then down a similar but different path to reach a file's metadata seems very counterintuitive to me. And you have to update all tools to do this automatically, or it'll be hopeless to actually use. Helge Hafting - 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/