[LWN Logo]

Date:	Tue, 06 Jun 2000 06:31:26 -0700
From:	Hans Reiser <hans@reiser.to>
To:	Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Subject: Re: New Linux 2.5 - 2.6 TODO (Alan Cox suggests delaying reiserfs 

Alan Cox wrote:
> 
> > fs
> > --
> > W     Merge ext3
> > W     Merge ReiserFS
> W       Merge XFS
> W       Merge NWFS
> 
> (All four depend in part on putting the right core journal layer there for
>  them all to use)

This is just a RedHat bureaucratic excuse to delay reiserfs.  Tweedie has long
suggested that we should use his journaling code, and that his code should form
some sort of standard journaling layer.  The only problem with that is that he
showed no interest in making it work for reiserfs, or in tuning it for reiserfs,
or doing anything else for any FS other than ext2.  We have working journaling
code, and yours is bad enough that you tell us it is horribly unfair to
benchmark against it! So you suggest that we wait until you have something that
will allow us to use your code!?  If you want us to use your code, show the
code, stop promising the code, and stop telling us to wait for it rather than
using our benchmarkably better code.  Prove that your code can work for reiserfs
as fast as what we use today.  The fact is, Chris Mason kicked your asses
performance wise and now you want to employ some journaling standardization
process to stall your competitors that you can't program as well as.

Why don't you help us with ReiserFS instead of standing in the way of people
trying to program?

Journaling should no more be held in common than any other aspect of the
filesystem.  Nor should it be standardized for filesystems that don't find it to
be what they want.  Just because journaling in reiserfs is  working and debugged
and in code freeze for 2.4 doesn't mean that we are more than halfway down the
path of what we are going to do in journaling.  We will be doing wandering logs,
and journaling in ReiserFS has another 18 months of DEEP innovations planned for
it.  Standardization bureaucrats should stay out of the way, we need to code.

Hans

PS

If you want to use our journaling code, you can.... but I rather doubt that was
what you had in mind....   and I don't want our filesystem to wait for you to
catch up to it.  I really don't understand why RedHat clings so hard to an old
technology FS.  New technologies come along all the time, why not embrace them? 
Your people ARE talented, and could contribute so much if they weren't standing
in the way.  Ext2 was a great thing, and it was the best FS in its time, but the
time has come to let it go....

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