Re: [PATCH] hfs{plus}: add deprecation warning

[Darrick J. Wong]

On Wed, Apr 16, 2025 at 08:27:19AM +0200, Christian Brauner wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 15, 2025 at 07:49:07AM -0700, Darrick J. Wong wrote:
> > On Tue, Apr 15, 2025 at 09:51:37AM +0200, Christian Brauner wrote:
> > > Both the hfs and hfsplus filesystem have been orphaned since at least
> > > 2014, i.e., over 10 years. It's time to remove them from the kernel as
> > > they're exhibiting more and more issues and no one is stepping up to
> > > fixing them.
> > > 
> > > Signed-off-by: Christian Brauner <brauner@xxxxxxxxxx>
> > > ---
> > >  fs/hfs/super.c     | 2 ++
> > >  fs/hfsplus/super.c | 2 ++
> > >  2 files changed, 4 insertions(+)
> > > 
> > > diff --git a/fs/hfs/super.c b/fs/hfs/super.c
> > > index fe09c2093a93..4413cd8feb9e 100644
> > > --- a/fs/hfs/super.c
> > > +++ b/fs/hfs/super.c
> > > @@ -404,6 +404,8 @@ static int hfs_init_fs_context(struct fs_context *fc)
> > >  {
> > >  	struct hfs_sb_info *hsb;
> > >  
> > > +	pr_warn("The hfs filesystem is deprecated and scheduled to be removed from the kernel in 2025\n");
> > 
> > Does this mean before or after the 2025 LTS kernel is released?  I would
> 
> I would've tried before the LTS release...

Well you still could.  No better way to get an oft-ignored filesystem
back into maintenance by throwing down a deprecation notice. :)

> > say that we ought to let this circulate more widely among users, but
> 
> which is a valid point. The removal of reiserfs and sysv has been pretty
> surgically clean. So at least from my POV it should be simple enough to
> revert the removal. But I'm not dealing with stable kernels so I have no
> intuition about the pain involved.

It'll probably cause a lot of pain for the distributions that support
PPC Macs because that's the only fs that the OF knows how to read for
bootfiles.  For dual-boot Intel Macs, their EFI partition is usually
HFS+ and contains various system files (+ grub), but their EFI actually
can read FAT.  I have an old 2012 Mac Mini that runs exclusively Debian,
and a FAT32 ESP works just fine.

> > OTOH I guess no maintainer for a decade is really bad.

On those grounds,
Acked-by: "Darrick J. Wong" <djwong@xxxxxxxxxx>

--D

> > 
> > --D
> > 
> > > +
> > >  	hsb = kzalloc(sizeof(struct hfs_sb_info), GFP_KERNEL);
> > >  	if (!hsb)
> > >  		return -ENOMEM;
> > > diff --git a/fs/hfsplus/super.c b/fs/hfsplus/super.c
> > > index 948b8aaee33e..58cff4b2a3b4 100644
> > > --- a/fs/hfsplus/super.c
> > > +++ b/fs/hfsplus/super.c
> > > @@ -656,6 +656,8 @@ static int hfsplus_init_fs_context(struct fs_context *fc)
> > >  {
> > >  	struct hfsplus_sb_info *sbi;
> > >  
> > > +	pr_warn("The hfsplus filesystem is deprecated and scheduled to be removed from the kernel in 2025\n");
> > > +
> > >  	sbi = kzalloc(sizeof(struct hfsplus_sb_info), GFP_KERNEL);
> > >  	if (!sbi)
> > >  		return -ENOMEM;
> > > -- 
> > > 2.47.2
> > > 
> > >