[OpenAFS] OpenAFS on Linux 2.5.x

[Derrick J Brashear]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2003 jon+openafs@silicide.dk wrote:

> > > Just because it works doesnt mean it cant be made smarter. Suppose
> > > the kernel people didnt change the smp part since 2.0, since it did
> > > just work. Reworking working code can have advantages. And starting
> > > with the KISS approach is a good idea too, then you can later see
> > > how to improve it and make advanced stuff.
> >
> > You missed the importance of "50 variants of what purport to be the same
> > version of the Linux kernel."
>
> Just make it for the default linus kernel then. It shouldnt be hard
> to avoid conflicts with other stuff, or doubling their work.

have you missed the constant requests for redhat 9 support? for support
for updates of older redhat versions? those aren't unreasonable requests,
but they're not requests to support 2.4.19, they're requests to support
something that's 2.4 with new features from 2.5 included.

supporting kernels which vendors distribute constitutes a large portion of
the development time spent on linux, but it makes sense to spend available
resources on this as opposed to 2.5 support, because the kernels are out
there now, being used by large sets of people, at home and at companies,
who want to use afs.

> > Right. And all I'm saying is, you can like my attitude or not, but nothing
> > says the person who interfaces with linux kernel people has to be me;
> > Nobody's falling over themselves to do it, though.
>
> no, but it would have to be someone smart :)

then clearly i'm not your man.

> True keeping it a patch/module that can be loaded would allow
> us to change more stuff in the kernel to get openafs to work,
> but is that a good thing? We might end up doing more work as
> the internal kernel stuff might change in the future, and besides
> i feel that being in the kernel gives extra credability, which
> i would prefer, since then more people would use AFS.

means turnaround on adding new features will be slower.