On Fri, 21 Jul 2023, Dave Chinner wrote:
I suspect that this is one of those catch-22 situations: distros are going to enable every feature under the sun. That doesn't mean that anyone is actually _using_ them these days.
I think the value of filesystem code is not just a question of how often
it gets executed -- it's also about retaining access to the data collected
in archives, museums, galleries etc. that is inevitably held in old
formats.
We need to much more proactive about dropping support for unmaintained filesystems that nobody is ever fixing despite the constant stream of corruption- and deadlock- related bugs reported against them.
IMO, a stream of bug reports is not a reason to remove code (it's a reason
to revert some commits).
Anyway, that stream of bugs presumably flows from the unstable kernel API, which is inherently high-maintenance. It seems that a stable API could be more appropriate for any filesystem for which the on-disk format is fixed
(by old media, by unmaintained FLOSS implementations or abandoned
proprietary implementations).
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