Hi! > > Keeping reiserfs in the tree has certain costs. For example, I would > > very much like to remove the 'flags' argument to ->write_begin. We have > > the infrastructure in place to handle AOP_FLAG_NOFS differently, but > > AOP_FLAG_CONT_EXPAND is still around, used only by reiserfs. > > > > Looking over the patches to reiserfs over the past couple of years, there > > are fixes for a few syzbot reports and treewide changes. There don't > > seem to be any fixes for user-spotted bugs since 2019. Does reiserfs > > still have a large install base that is just very happy with an old > > stable filesystem? Or have all its users migrated to new and exciting > > filesystems with active feature development? > > > > We've removed support for senescent filesystems before (ext, xiafs), so > > it's not unprecedented. But while I have a clear idea of the benefits to > > other developers of removing reiserfs, I don't have enough information to > > weigh the costs to users. Maybe they're happy with having 5.15 support > > for their reiserfs filesystems and can migrate to another filesystem > > before they upgrade their kernel after 5.15. > > > > Another possibility beyond outright removal would be to trim the kernel > > code down to read-only support for reiserfs. Most of the quirks of > > reiserfs have to do with write support, so this could be a useful way > > forward. Again, I don't have a clear picture of how people actually > > use reiserfs, so I don't know whether it is useful or not. > > > > NB: Please don't discuss the personalities involved. This is purely a > > "we have old code using old APIs" discussion. > > So from my distro experience installed userbase of reiserfs is pretty small > and shrinking. We still do build reiserfs in openSUSE / SLES kernels but > for enterprise offerings it is unsupported (for like 3-4 years) and the module > is not in the default kernel rpm anymore. I believe I've seen reiserfs in recent Arch Linux ARM installation on PinePhone. I don't really think you can remove a feature people are using. Best regards, Pavel -- People of Russia, stop Putin before his war on Ukraine escalates.
Attachment:
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
