Date:	Wed, 17 Feb 1999 09:43:57 -0800 (PST)
From:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
To:	Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Subject: Re: fsync on large files



On Wed, 17 Feb 1999, Alan Cox wrote:
> > kinds of major fs modifications - call it "ext3" and after a year or so of
> > in-production use we can drop ext2.
> 
> And funnily enough the instructions for applying his patch start
> "copy fs/ext2 to fs/ext3 then..."

Good. Then don't go around calling it ext2 any more. I don't want to have
people even _wondering_ about the stability of the central Linux
filesystem. 

I would also suggest that Stephen actually drop ext2 altogether. There's
just too much historical stuff in most filesystems - things like having
"." and ".." in directories, even though Linux doesn't need them and they
only complicate renaming and loopback mounting a lot. There's also a lot
of code to handle concurrent writes etc, which can't happen any more.

This is why I'm so upset at even the notion of extending ext2 - not only
do I dislike the fact that Stephen was going to do it in-place (and I'm
happy to hear he no longer considers that), I think that if people are
doing a new filesystem, it should be done like "ext2" was originally done: 
by designing a new one, rather than building more scaffolding on top of an
old one. 

		Linus


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