Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) Now GPL

melios writes "In a move that could help boost the scalability of Linux for grids and other advanced 64-bit multiprocessor applications, HP has released its Tru64 Unix Advanced File System (AdvFS) source code to the open source community. Source code, design documentation, and test suites for AdvFS are available on SourceForge."

Comments

Re:As a former Digital UNIX admin...

[rahvin112]

Linux Weekly News has a comment from an HP developer indicating they aren't putting this out there so it can become a linux file system, but so that the lessons learned and parts of the code that are useful can be incorporated into one of the linux file systems of the future. I took it to mean, take our code and use whatever you can to make ext4 or ext5.
 
 

While it would be fine with HP if someone wants to "port" AdvFS to Linux or any other
operating system with a GPLv2 compatible license, this contribution is not intended to
"compete" with other existing file system projects underway in and around the kernel.org
development community.

Rather, our hope is that the algorithms, design documentation, and test suite now available at
the AdvFS site... and the active participation of HP engineers in various open-source file
system projects who have lots of AdvFS experience... will help to accelerate the inclusion of
AdvFS-like enterprise features and capabilities in next-generation file systems for Linux.

Re:What's the point?

[Znork]

it has snapshotting, intelligent striping and mirroring, dynamic resizing

Eh, exactly which feature is unique? Snapshotting, striping, mirroring, resizing, encryption, etc, all of it can be done through the device mapper stack.

I have situations where I don't want any filesystem at all on the mixed chunks (shared iSCSI block devices, for example), others where I want partial mirrors, parts crypted, parts remote-synced, etc. Mixing block device, volume management and filesystem together in my opinion, simply bad engineering. There are far too many assumptions about what people usually do so you end up with something suitable only for exactly what the designer had in mind, and worse, sometimes completely unsuitable for what people actually do.

Having run both AdvFS and ZFS, I _vastly_ prefer the layered approach of ext3/LVM/md/etc.

there's no comparable production filesystem

Yes, well, try actually running ZFS in production for a while with any kind of odd load (and some not so odd loads at all). Sometimes things just aren't all they're hyped up to be.

Filesystems are one part of most systems where 'exciting' isn't the most desirable feature.

Tru64 goodness

[JayMcB74]

I really hope everyone will join me in thanking HP for this and encourage them to release more of the Tru64 OS, HP has been on my $&!â list since they bought and buried this years ago. They are sitting on so much good IP that I really wish that they would only make printers and just the 4000+ series at that.