From: Greg Freemyer Subject: Re: [PATCHES/RFC v1.0.12] e2fsprogs: Next3 patch series Date: Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:11:19 -0400 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: Jan Kara , Theodore Tso , Andreas Dilger , Ext4 Developers List To: "Amir G." Return-path: Received: from mail-iw0-f174.google.com ([209.85.214.174]:65098 "EHLO mail-iw0-f174.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1758659Ab0GTVLV convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:11:21 -0400 Received: by iwn7 with SMTP id 7so6038044iwn.19 for ; Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:11:19 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: Sender: linux-ext4-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 4:12 PM, Amir G. wrote: > On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 6:38 PM, Jan Kara wrote: >>> In fact, the posted patches are only the small patches to e2fsprogs= =2E >>> The more challenging job is the review of the Next3 snapshot patche= s, >>> which apply on top of ext3 (or rather a forked branch of ext3 calle= d 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 s= ize patches). >> =A0Well, I can have a look at those patches. But I'd like to know wh= at 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 situatio= n... >> =A0To state my position: I'm not willing to merge the feature into e= xt3 >> because it's basically in a maintenance mode so we don't accept larg= er >> features to it anymore (for stability reasons). > > of course. > >> =A0You could, of course, copy ext3 code base and create a separate n= ext3 >> filesystem. But such code duplication would be generally frowned upo= n 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 you= r code >> and you have a problem that as time progresses, new features are add= ed to >> ext4, not ext3, so I think it would be less and less attractive to r= un >> 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 goo= d idea. > I agree that in the long term, Next3 as a file system driver has no p= lace, > but for practical reasons, I needed to create a separate file system = driver, > so people will be able to use the new feature without patching ext3 d= uring > 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 th= ere are >> technical issues with this and I'm not sure how hard they would be t= o >> 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 = help >> 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= than 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 ab= out. > > 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 desi= gn paper) > > Thanks for taking an interest, > Amir. So are you just asking for comments right now, or are you asking that the e2fsprogs patches get applied? Maybe a separate e2fsprogs branch for next3 should be created like there was for the 64-bit patches? (That would be Ted/Jan's call, not mine.) Greg -- 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