From: "Amir G." Subject: Re: [PATCHES/RFC v1.0.12] e2fsprogs: Next3 patch series Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 22:12:22 +0200 Message-ID: References: <1279638973-14561-1-git-send-email-amir73il@users.sf.net> <20100720163825.GC12998@quack.suse.cz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Cc: Theodore Tso , Andreas Dilger , Ext4 Developers List To: Jan Kara Return-path: Received: from mail-fx0-f46.google.com ([209.85.161.46]:64779 "EHLO mail-fx0-f46.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1757879Ab0GTUMY convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Tue, 20 Jul 2010 16:12:24 -0400 Received: by fxm14 with SMTP id 14so3134623fxm.19 for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2010 13:12:23 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20100720163825.GC12998@quack.suse.cz> Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Jan Kara wrote: >> In fact, the posted patches are only the small patches to e2fsprogs. >> The more challenging job is the review of the Next3 snapshot patches= , >> which apply on top of ext3 (or rather a forked branch of ext3 called= next3). >> They are available for download at >> http://sourceforge.net/projects/next3/files/Latest%20patch%20series >> but I can also post them to the list if you like (about 40 medium si= ze patches). > =A0Well, I can have a look at those patches. But I'd like to know wha= t is > exactly your motivation - is it that you have some customers running = with > this clone and want to upstream the fs, or is it that you'd like to > contribute the cool feature you've developped, or something else? contribute cool feature is the best match. > Because on this depends where we should go from the current situation= =2E.. > =A0To state my position: I'm not willing to merge the feature into ex= t3 > because it's basically in a maintenance mode so we don't accept large= r > features to it anymore (for stability reasons). of course. > =A0You could, of course, copy ext3 code base and create a separate ne= xt3 > filesystem. But such code duplication would be generally frowned upon= and I > personally wouldn't like to take the burden of maintaining such code = so > you'd have to do it. Moreover you have to port all ext3 fixes to your= code > and you have a problem that as time progresses, new features are adde= d to > ext4, not ext3, so I think it would be less and less attractive to ru= n > Next3 instead of ext4... So this doesn't seem like an ideal solution = either. you are not the first to tell me that the fork from ext3 is not a good = idea. I agree that in the long term, Next3 as a file system driver has no pla= ce, but for practical reasons, I needed to create a separate file system dr= iver, so people will be able to use the new feature without patching ext3 dur= ing the long time it will take me to merge the feature to ext4. > =A0For future, the most promising to me would be to change the > implementation to work with ext4 and merge it there. I understand the= re are > technical issues with this and I'm not sure how hard they would be to > solve. But for me as a filesystem developper this would seem like a > direction where it's worth to invest some time and energy and I can h= elp > with that (and I believe other ext4 developpers might lend a hand as = well). > =A0Just my thoughts... and the first step towards getting the snapshot feature into ext4 is for some ext3/4 developers to review the patches, so I will have someone (rather some t= han one) with whom I can discuss the merge issues. I actually proposed the next3 merge as a topic for LSF, but that didn't get much attention. > Anyway, I've added to my todo an item to have a look > at your patches so that I have better idea what we are discussing abo= ut. That would be great. If you like, we can schedule a call after you've gone through some of the patches/docs. I have done this with Ted and I think it's a good way to get started. if you haven't looked at http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/next3/ that would be a good place to start (also links to the snapshots design= paper) Thanks for taking an interest, Amir. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ext4" i= n the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html