Re: [PATCH 00/15] drbd: a block device for HA clusters

From: Al Boldi
Date: Fri Jun 26 2009 - 14:56:23 EST


James Bottomley wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-06-26 at 18:43 +0300, Al Boldi wrote:
> > James Bottomley wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2009-06-26 at 17:15 +0300, Al Boldi wrote:
> > > > Philipp Reisner wrote:
> > > > > Short Description
> > > > >
> > > > > DRBD is a shared-nothing, synchronously replicated block device.
> > > >
> > > > What do you mean by "shared-nothing"?
> > >
> > > If you actually type "shared nothing" into google, the first hit will
> > > be the wikipedia article describing this.
> >
> > Sure, but the point here is to choose a description that is clear and
> > self-explanatory, and "shared-nothing" is neither clear nor
> > self-explanatory.
>
> It is clear because everyone agrees on the definition.

Everyone involved in the project maybe, but not everyone interested in "a
block device for HA clusters". And you don't want to turn them of by using
terminology to explain terminology, especially when it's misleading. Many
OpenSource projects fail merely for this reason.

> And it is self
> explanatory because it's an art term for a well defined concept which
> forms one of the building blocks of the nomenclature used in clustering.
> Even if you're not familiar with clustering terminology, the definitions
> are easy to find via search engines.
>
> If you want to find useful quibbles, the term synchronously is wrong:
> DRBD is capable of both synchronous and asynchronous replication.

Ok, so maybe change the description to reflect this capability.
Something like: DRBD is an independent, synch/async replicated block device.


Thanks!

--
Al

--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/