[OpenAFS] MR-AFS [was: Re: OpenAFS Project List ]

[Esther Filderman]

> | Large            |              | High, but     | Peter Honeyman       |
>| files/volumes (> |              | difficult     | (UMich).  Note:      |
>| 2 GB files, > 8  |              |               | Peter will get work  |
>| GB volumes)      |              |               | related to this      |
>|                  |              |               | effort from Antonelli|
>|                  |              |               | & his group at UMich |
>|                  |              |               | .  Hartmut Reuter    |
>|                  |              |               | (Max Planck) may also|
>|                  |              |               | have some related    |
>|                  |              |               | work.                |


NOTE:  These are just my words and my take on the situation.   Please DO NOT
take this as an official statement from the PSC.  Anyone trying to do so, or
passing this along without this warning, will be hunted down and turned into a
frog.  Just try me if you think I'm joking!

Anyway.  The work that has been done at UMich and by Hartmut is all part of, or
based upon MR-AFS.  Multiple Resident AFS was originally built at the
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center.  We still hold the rights to it.

With the Open-Sourcing of AFS there has been a lot of call [and even some
screaming and yelling] to Open Source MR-AFS.  Unfortunately, the HigherUps
here do not want it Open Sourced.  It's now my job to get it properly licensed,
one way or another.

On the one hand, the bosses [currently] want some financial restrictions placed
on the code.  [Mainly, as I see it, I believe that they don't want MR-AFS being
turned around and marketed as part of a product.]  On the other hand, I've
pointed out the critical importance of parts of the MR-AFS code, such as the
larger file sizes, to become part of OpenAFS.

At the last LISA conference I had a long talk with Hartmut Reuter about MR-AFS.
 Certainly Hartmut has put in tons of hard work and a few gallons of blood into
it.  He had some wise advice, which I'm taking.  

Globally, OpenAFS should add a hook so people can use MR-AFS if they desire.
Then folks who want to use MR-AFS would get a license from us and be able to use it.

More specifically, I do want to completely free up some areas of the code, such
as the larger file size stuff, and make it available to add directly into
OpenAFS.

By the way, if you need someone to yell at about this, please yell at me.
Yelling at my higher ups will do nothing but piss them off [in my unhumble
opinion].  Right now they don't consider MR-AFS a priority.  I, on the other
hand, think this is very high priority. However, since I will need their
sign-off to get this completed, it won't help me if you cheese them off.

Thanks,
Esther