Re: Reiser4 Inclusion

From: Jeff V. Merkey
Date: Wed Jul 19 2006 - 15:51:20 EST


A big ego thing I guess.

Keeping a lot of FS's and code out of tree has a lot of advatanges (like not getting targeted by folks
claiming IP issues suing Linus and Co.). I am still distributing NWFS out of the tree, and there's still 2000+ downloads per month from
three separate locations -- code I have not touched in three years.

Projects I have taken commercial are big money makers and obviously will not be submitted to the tree. Reiser is shipped in Suse
Linux as the default, so who cares whether its in the tree or not -- it still has succeeded. You guys should keep the stuff out of the tree
(in fact most of the FS's and other code should not be in the tree).

The whole Linux base is too big as it is and becoming larger. Only minimal drivers and FS's should be in the tree. Less broken stuff
and dependencies. I have been watching development cycles take longer and longer to get Linux kernels out -- Red Hat is STILL
shipping 2.6.9-22 with ES4 (update kernels have various issues of stability).

The smaller the better. You have more control if you keep it out, and greater opporutnities for serious folks to do business
deals to promote your stuff.

Jeff

Valdis.Kletnieks@xxxxxx wrote:

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:32:48 +0200, Tilman Schmidt said:



Well, that doesn't make sense. You can't have your cake and eat it
too. Either you have out-of-tree code or you haven't. Documents
like stable_api_nonsense.txt explicitly discourage out-of-tree code,
which is formally equivalent to saying that all kernel code should
be in-tree. Therefore an attitude which says "go on developing that
code out-of-tree, it's not ready for inclusion yet" is in direct
contradiction with the foundations of the no-stable-API policy.



Which part of "read Documentation/SubmittingPatches.txt and do what it says,
or it doesn't get into the kernel" do you have trouble understanding?

It isn't a case of "out of tree code or you haven't". There's actually
*three* major categories:

1) Code that's already in-tree and maintained. These guys don't need to
worry about the API, as it will usually get handled free of charge.

2) Code that's out-of-tree, but a potential (after possible rework) candidate
for submission (for instance, the hi-res timers, CKRM, some drivers, etc).
These guys need to forward-port their code for API changes as they work
towards getting their code into the tree.

3) Code that's out-of-tree, but is so far out in left field that there's
no way it will ever go in. For instance, that guy with the MVS JCL emulator
better not be holding his breath waiting. And quite frankly, nobody else
really cares whether they forward port their code or not.



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