Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the yes-even-more-sgi-news dept.
hedonick wrote in to let us know that SGI will be releasing XFS under the terms of the GPL. It looks like they want to use it to replace ext2 under Linux. Since XFS is a journaling filesystem, this is something I'm personally looking forward to.
What is going on with the comments today. Everyone seems to be saying, roughly, 'What if SGI releases this under GPL and someone other than Linux uses it! That would be bad!' Excuse me!
Ok, correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the whole point of releasing something open source was so that ANYONE could use it, so long as they published the code and allowed people to modify it. The code, although in a sense given to Linux, is not just for Linux.
Sure there could be a problem of someone like MS taking the code using it and not publishing it. They would be breaking the law if they did, and if it ever got out then they would be screwed. But assuming that they DID integrate it into Windows, publishing or not, the world wins in one sense. This is because they would be using a very good filesystem. Not only that but it would make projects that allow for reading and writing of slices containing MS would be much easier. Perhaps it will help create more of a standard for file naming.
Seriously, don't b?tch about another OS using GPLed code. It is seriously uncool.
Why would MS (or another vendor) "steal" XFS-GPL, when they could just port it to the Windows NT IFS layer and include the source code on the CD?
MS might be evil enough to be stealing code from open source software, but if they are, it's purely out of pride, because there's legal ways they could use the code. --
experience with XFS and JFS
by
jetson123
·
· Score: 3
I have been using XFS and JFS-based systems for several years and I'm unimpressed.
I have more experience with JFS because I have used it in some large applications; I have been running XFS on my desktop Irix machine for a couple of years.
Here are some observations about JFS; most of those also apply to XFS:
It can be quite slow in practice; for example, untarring a large amount of scientific data, JFS took three times as much time as ext2, even though it was running on a faster SCSI disk. I haven't done XFS measurements, but XFS also feels sluggish in practice to me.
It only protects file system structure, not file content.
It only protects against a small set of failures. For example, hardware failures and file-system related bugs still cause data loss.
JFS comes with a LVM (volume manager) and XFS integrates XLV. In my experience, those kinds of systems complicate disk management, increase the risk of file system management mistakes, and make it more difficult to predict performance.
Journalling does not guarantee fast recovery. There may still be extensive recovery going on at boot time. IBM's JFS, ironically, often runs on systems that have (unrelated) performance bottlenecks in their boot code that makes them some of the slowest booting UNIX machines in existence.
The only time I have actually lost a partition over the last decade was on a journalling file system due to, what appears to have been a software bug in the fs code. Journalling file systems are tricky pieces of software to write.
Of course, with XFS on Linux, we can finally compare these issues side-by-side on identical hardware and kernels. It will be interesting how XFS holds up.
XFS has some nice features, and I think it will be a great addition to Linux as an optional file system. Its availability will make Linux much more attractive to some corporate buyers.
But before adopting it widely, I believe the issues that I raise above need to be looked into and evaluated carefully. I suspect many people don't need the features of XFS, overestimate the safety of journalling file systems, and will get bitten by the complexities and overhead. I hope XFS will not preempt the further development of "traditional" Linux file systems.
My only gripe about ext2 is its tendency to fragment. It's nearly as bad as NTFS in this regard. ufs and HPFS do a much better job at resisting fragmentation.
So, does anyone know if XFS is better at resisting fragmentation than ext2?
So SGI will add XFS to the Linux Kernel shortly, great, but what if some company steals stuff from the XFS technology by looking at the kernel source and integrates it into their product? I know that the GPL is supposed to prevent that, but the thing is, how do you prove it? example: how do you prove that Win2K doesn't use some modified Linux IP stack? Nobody's allowed to see the source so nobody will ever find out right?
guess i'm just paranoid:-)
The real question is; HOW MANY DEVELOPERS!
by
law
·
· Score: 2
How many developers will SGI bring to the table? One? or thirty? That will realy show me, SGI has less resorces then ever before. How much are they going to invest in the future? they have allready paid for XFS. What will they do? just maintain the code and stand back? Or will the actively develop on all of the Linux Kernel? or just part? That will truly show the heart of SGI.
If BSD wants XFS, they'll port it. It'll just reside as an option in the non-free section of the installation.
A bit of info about file journaling
by
ChrisRijk
·
· Score: 2
This is a LONG article from SunWorld mag, and you have to go down a fair bit to get to the info about file journaling, and such, but it's a good read: Getting to know the Solaris filesystem, Part 1
'As for "keeping a log", that is a similar over-simplification. The reference is to "journal file system" a.k.a. a logging file system. This will probably get fixed in Linux within six months, but is currently a definite negative (long fsck times for large storage systems) and just one example of the many criteria we examined in our report.'
Gosh, all I see is whining about how this is "old news" - I don't recall ever seeing exactly what license XFS was going to be distributed under.
Regardless, let's showing a little fscking gratitude (forgive the pun) to SGI! They're supporting Linux on their workstations, their developers have always contributed to the kernel, and now they're freeing a huge, important chunk of code that is desperately needed and would be a massive development effort to start from scratch! Hoorah for SGI!
So what if it's a pre-emptive strike against IBM's journaling file system? More free software is good free software! Now we have more choices, and people can pick what's right for their uses, and may the best product "win", because in the end, we're all going to win. Huzzah!:)
Slashdot Mirror
What is going on with the comments today. Everyone seems to be saying, roughly, 'What if SGI releases this under GPL and someone other than Linux uses it! That would be bad!' Excuse me!
Ok, correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the whole point of releasing something open source was so that ANYONE could use it, so long as they published the code and allowed people to modify it. The code, although in a sense given to Linux, is not just for Linux.
Sure there could be a problem of someone like MS taking the code using it and not publishing it. They would be breaking the law if they did, and if it ever got out then they would be screwed. But assuming that they DID integrate it into Windows, publishing or not, the world wins in one sense. This is because they would be using a very good filesystem. Not only that but it would make projects that allow for reading and writing of slices containing MS would be much easier. Perhaps it will help create more of a standard for file naming.
Seriously, don't b?tch about another OS using GPLed code. It is seriously uncool.
Disclamer - Opinion of Person
It would be great to see the software dual licensed under an unencumbered license so that FreeBSD could include it.
Actually, he is right. I posted this in a comment yesterday which shows at the top of the SGI Announces New Strategy and Alliance article.
:)
I also submitted the story yesterday but they said that they were already posting a SGI story and so they wouldn't post mine.
--
The world is neither black nor white nor good nor evil, only many shades of CowboyNeal.
Why would MS (or another vendor) "steal" XFS-GPL, when they could just port it to the Windows NT IFS layer and include the source code on the CD?
MS might be evil enough to be stealing code from open source software, but if they are, it's purely out of pride, because there's legal ways they could use the code.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I have more experience with JFS because I have used it in some large applications; I have been running XFS on my desktop Irix machine for a couple of years.
Here are some observations about JFS; most of those also apply to XFS:
Of course, with XFS on Linux, we can finally compare these issues side-by-side on identical hardware and kernels. It will be interesting how XFS holds up.
XFS has some nice features, and I think it will be a great addition to Linux as an optional file system. Its availability will make Linux much more attractive to some corporate buyers.
But before adopting it widely, I believe the issues that I raise above need to be looked into and evaluated carefully. I suspect many people don't need the features of XFS, overestimate the safety of journalling file systems, and will get bitten by the complexities and overhead. I hope XFS will not preempt the further development of "traditional" Linux file systems.
So, does anyone know if XFS is better at resisting fragmentation than ext2?
--
Interested in XFMail? New XFMail home page
So SGI will add XFS to the Linux Kernel shortly, great, but what if some company steals stuff from the XFS technology by looking at the kernel source and integrates it into their product?
:-)
I know that the GPL is supposed to prevent that, but the thing is, how do you prove it?
example: how do you prove that Win2K doesn't use some modified Linux IP stack? Nobody's allowed to see the source so nobody will ever find out right?
guess i'm just paranoid
How many developers will SGI bring to the table? One? or thirty?
That will realy show me, SGI has less resorces then ever before.
How much are they going to invest in the future? they have allready paid for XFS.
What will they do? just maintain the code and stand back? Or will the actively develop on all of the Linux Kernel? or just part?
That will truly show the heart of SGI.
"Think of it as evolution in action."
If BSD wants XFS, they'll port it. It'll just reside as an option in the non-free section of the installation.
This is a LONG article from SunWorld mag, and you have to go down a fair bit to get to the info about file journaling, and such, but it's a good read:
Getting to know the Solaris filesystem, Part 1
Chew on this D.H. Brown.
'As for "keeping a log", that is a similar over-simplification. The reference is to "journal file system" a.k.a. a logging file system. This will probably get fixed in Linux within six months, but is currently a definite negative (long fsck times for large storage systems) and just one example of the many criteria we examined in our report.'
I suppose Linux will move up a notch?
It will in my book.
Jim
Gosh, all I see is whining about how this is "old news" - I don't recall ever seeing exactly what license XFS was going to be distributed under.
Regardless, let's showing a little fscking gratitude (forgive the pun) to SGI! They're supporting Linux on their workstations, their developers have always contributed to the kernel, and now they're freeing a huge, important chunk of code that is desperately needed and would be a massive development effort to start from scratch! Hoorah for SGI!
So what if it's a pre-emptive strike against IBM's journaling file system? More free software is good free software! Now we have more choices, and people can pick what's right for their uses, and may the best product "win", because in the end, we're all going to win. Huzzah! :)