Considering that they… killed ReiserFS in Kernel 6.13, perhaps there’s more room in the pond? 
2 Likes
2 Likes
Ever since RedHat deprecated BTRFS because it was too much effort to back port newer kernel changes for BTRFS to the old, (but stable), kernel used in RHEL, I have felt actively developed file systems don’t belong in the kernel code.
If we take OpenZFS as an example, it works perfectly fine outside of the kernel. There have been problems where the “kernel people” take away a feature for external kernel modules, like floating point. Or was that special CPU instructions like AV512?
Anyway, my point is that an actively developed file system, like BcacheFS or OpenZFS, probably should not be tied to a specific kernel. Just have a range of kernels the code supports. I mean it is not like the Linux kernel invents something totally new every release. They appear to just like to re-organize / optimize things.
I am not suggesting that BcacheFS or BTRFS support kernels more than 2 years old. Just enough to have support for 2 LTS kernels, with the old LTS kernel getting deprecated in the file system code soon. Like perhaps 3 months after a new LTS is released, stop supporting the old LTS. Yet I do feel strongly that their needs to be some overlap, like the 3 months I suggest. And of course, cover the kernel releases between the LTS and current.
3 Likes
They don’t but they probably wish they do!
Breaking things is a way to convince yourself you’re moving.
In practical terms, for as long as RHEL is relevant, the support cycle will probably have to look like ZFS’, which is mostly driven by whatever the oldest RHEL kernel is.
Good point. I forgot that if RHEL ends up supporting BcacheFS, then years from now Bcachefs will still have to support the RHEL supported kernels.
Of course, BcacheFS can be a bit more cruel. I’ve worked for companies that go on extended vendor support for OS or hardware that reached end of support life, stage 1. Vendors now see they can make more money having stage 2 or 3 EOL support. But, that does not mean the BcacheFS developers have to support such EOL OSes and the kernels they run on. RedHat can do that.