Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1754478AbZAJSbZ (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:31:25 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1752543AbZAJSbO (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:31:14 -0500 Received: from smtp1.linux-foundation.org ([140.211.169.13]:40097 "EHLO smtp1.linux-foundation.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752538AbZAJSbN (ORCPT ); Sat, 10 Jan 2009 13:31:13 -0500 Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2009 10:30:23 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds X-X-Sender: torvalds@localhost.localdomain To: Andrew Morton cc: =?ISO-8859-15?Q?J=F6rn_Engel?= , Ingo Molnar , David Brown , Phil Oester , Kay Sievers , Phillip Lougher , Christoph Hellwig , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] Squashfs pull request for 2.6.29 In-Reply-To: <20090110101235.7ca24c44.akpm@linux-foundation.org> Message-ID: References: <20090108165029.GA10951@infradead.org> <20090108175338.2abbee16.akpm@linux-foundation.org> <4966B24E.1050700@lougher.demon.co.uk> <20090109023629.GA29520@linuxace.com> <20090109165422.GF24884@logfs.org> <20090109193738.GA9827@linode.davidb.org> <20090109211937.GA14342@logfs.org> <20090110124335.GB30744@elte.hu> <20090110165033.GA23943@logfs.org> <20090110101235.7ca24c44.akpm@linux-foundation.org> User-Agent: Alpine 2.00 (LFD 1167 2008-08-23) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1128 Lines: 27 On Sat, 10 Jan 2009, Andrew Morton wrote: > > More importantly, the filesystem driver has to be able to read older > filesystem instances. This is a userspace-visible binary interface! > A really complex one. Well, the good news is that read-only filesystems are _sooo_ much simpler than any real filesystem that quite frankly, on a "complexity" scale it's still way way down there. Also, if it's not used for backup (and I don't think anybody would), there's actually less reason to be back-wards compatible. I know I changed cramfs a few times incompatibly, simply becaus "you might as well just re-run the user tools to generate the image". It was for a similar need, and the image really always goes along with the kernel. I think squashfs usage would be similar - you'd not have squashfs as a standalone media, it would be a "installation medium" thing. Linus -- 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/