From: Theodore Tso Subject: Re: 2.6.21-ext4-1 Date: Mon, 30 Apr 2007 13:45:30 -0400 Message-ID: <20070430174530.GC19149@thunk.org> References: <46362463.5010309@garzik.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org, Johann Lombardi , "Amit K. Arora" , Dave Chinner , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Andrew Morton , Linus Torvalds To: Jeff Garzik Return-path: Received: from thunk.org ([69.25.196.29]:48029 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1031576AbXD3Rpo (ORCPT ); Mon, 30 Apr 2007 13:45:44 -0400 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <46362463.5010309@garzik.org> Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ext4.vger.kernel.org On Mon, Apr 30, 2007 at 01:16:19PM -0400, Jeff Garzik wrote: > Why isn't this stuff going upstream rapidly? Some of the patches are ready to be pushed upstream, and that will be happening shortly. In the case of the fallocate patches, the system call interface hadn't been completely closed, so we don't want to push it until we have closure and consensus. The previous versions of the patches used an ioctl interface that would have gotten potshots from the all-ioctls-are-evil camp, and it was clear that a unified system call interface was the right thing. So we wanted to make sure the XFS folks were happy with the interface as well before we pushed it. In general, yes, ext4 development has been a little slow; part of the problem is that we have a lot of people, but a number of folks are new and their patches need review before they are ready for upstream acceptance, and a number of other folks who should be doing the review have been overloaded with multiple other projects and have been time-sharing. > The whole point of having ext4 in the kernel is to do development > upstream, in the public view, getting new stuff in ASAP (even if that > means changing or pulling some stuff later). That's true, but we also get flamed when the patches don't meet various criteria, up to and including breaking on ia64. We are in the process of setting up automated testing to help address that problem, but it's a taken a little while to get that going. I'm also trying to schedule more time so I can do the needed review of the patches so they meet basic upstream standards so we *can* push them. If other folks would like to help with the review process, that would be more than welcome. But yes, we will try to get more of the patches pushed sooner rather than later. Point taken. - Ted