>>>>> "James" == james rich <james.rich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
James> I am wondering how the XFS team plans on avoiding the same
James> problems once XFS becomes part of the kernel. Is there
James> potential for problems with SGI "losing control" over the
James> source or direction of XFS once Linus puts it in his tree?
The thing the LVM project has lacked is a process. Mails and patches
have been dropped, and the LVM developers have been playing their own
game instead of tracking development of the generic kernel.
That model doesn't work very well in the Linux space. When you're in
the Open Source business you have to play by the rules. Otherwise the
community will work around you. Hence the discussions yesterday.
If SGI were to do a bad job maintaining XFS, we would probably see
something similar to what has happened with LVM: Alan Cox applying
patches to his kernels that the LVM folks didn't take.
However, this behaviour is unusual. As long as the official
maintainer of something is actively developing it, Alan and Linus only
take patches from that person. And everybody else submit their
changes to the official maintainer.
Now, it doesn't really matter whether your CVS tree is open for
submissions from the outside or not. That's a technical detail. What
matters is whether patches and comments from the outside make it into
the tree. And I honestly think we're doing a good job at that with
XFS.
Also, I think the mods generated by our internal revision control/bug
tracking system are good, self-contained patches that would suit
Alan/Linus well.
--
Martin K. Petersen, Principal Linux Consultant, Linuxcare, Inc.
mkp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, http://www.linuxcare.com/
SGI XFS for Linux Developer, http://oss.sgi.com/projects/xfs/
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