From: Linus Torvalds Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] Ext3 removal, quota & udf fixes Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 15:39:38 -0700 Message-ID: References: <20150831061920.GA2751@quack.suse.cz> <55E4D5DE.2030709@gmail.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Cc: Jan Kara , LKML , "linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org" , linux-fsdevel To: Raymond Jennings Return-path: In-Reply-To: <55E4D5DE.2030709@gmail.com> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ext4.vger.kernel.org On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 3:31 PM, Raymond Jennings wrote: > > That said, I wouldn't mind myself if the ext4 driver were given a very > grueling regression test to make sure it can actually handle old ext3 > systems as well as the ext3 driver can. That's not my only worry. Things like "can you go back to ext3-only" is an issue too - I don't think that's been a big priority for ext4 any more, and if there are any existing hold-outs that still use ext3, they may want to be able to go back to old kernels. So it's not just a "you can use ext4 instead" issue. Can you do that *without* then forcing an upgrade forever on that partition? I'm not sure the ext4 people are really even willing to guarantee that kind of backwards compatibility. I could be ok with removing ext3 in theory, but I haven't seen a lot of rationale for it, and I don't know if there are still users who may have their own good reasons to stay with ext3. Maybe there has been lots of discussion about this on fsdevel (which I don't follow), and I'm just lacking the background, but if so I want to see that background. Not just a oneliner description that basically says "remove ext3 support". Linus