Re: [Dazuko-devel] 7 Years of Dazuko [IMPORTANT]

[Lino Sanfilippo]

John Ogness schrieb:
> Hi,
>
> The Dazuko project was created seven years ago today. During that time
> we have seen a lot of changes. But right now Dazuko is in the middle
> of its biggest change ever: the switch to DazukoFS. I have noticed
> that this change has caused quite a stir among the Dazuko community
> and at this point I am not certain how it will turn out. But I would
> like to take a moment to address several very important issues.
>
>
> ============
>  Dazuko 2.x
> ============
>
> I have decided that I will no longer maintain Dazuko 2.x. I am only
> interested in DazukoFS. If anyone is interested in keeping the Dazuko
> 2.x branch maintained, please post to this list or contact me
> directly. I am happy to give full CVS access to the project. (The
> website is already accessable to anyone.)
>
> My reasons for abandoning Dazuko 2.x are:
>
> - It cannot work with the current Linux kernels. It would need to be
>   changed to piggy-back off another project, such as RedirFS, or
>   become a kernel-patch-only solution.
>
> - The code is inefficient and difficult to maintain.
>
> - A path-based file access control mechanism is primitive and should
>   not be used when alternatives such as DazukoFS exist.
>
> - I maintain the Dazuko project for fun in my free time. Maintaining
>   the Dazuko 2.x branch stopped being fun about a year ago.
>
>
> ======================
>  The Future: DazukoFS
> ======================
>
> As you probably know, DazukoFS has been submitted for inclusion in the
> mainline Linux kernel. Unfortunately it is getting practically no
> attention. I do not know if the silence is because I am not CC'ing the
> correct people, because those people refuse to look at it, or because
> no one has any time for it.
>
> I will continue my efforts and contact various other kernel developers
> to see what I need to do to get some attention to the project. But in
> the meantime, our project is sitting in a release-candidate stage with
> an outdated Dazuko 2.3.5 being the "official" version.
>
> Perhaps we should not to wait for mainline acceptance before
> officially releasing DazukoFS? I need your input on this. My main
> concern is the interface. If we release DazukoFS now, we need to be
> aware that until DazukoFS has been accepted mainline, there is the
> possibility that it could change (a lot). On the other hand, if we
> continue to sit where we are now (with an outdated stable version and
> a new, incompatible unofficial version), then the project may end up
> dead because all of its users decided to move on to something
> else. (If a project has no users, why should it continue to exist?)
>
> I am patient. I've been working on DazukoFS for several years, so
> personally I am in no rush. But I am also aware that the current state
> of the project has become useless for the "common user". And the fact
> that Dazuko 2.3.5 is the current official version is causing a lot of
> problems for new users.
>
> Regardless, I will continue with my plan to orphan the Dazuko 2.x
> branch. If no one wants to maintain it, I will change the entire
> website to focus only on DazukoFS. If I do not receive any kind of
> useful feedback, I will also patiently continue to get DazukoFS
> mainline while only posting the latest proposed DazukoFS version to
> the website. In my opinion this is the best course of action for any
> long term success. But it may be problematic for users and vendors
> that rely on Dazuko. (But if no one speaks up, I can only assume that
> there is no preference for the future course of action.)
>
> John Ogness
>
>   
Hi John,

I suggest not to wait for mainline acceptance. As you already stated the
process of getting dazukofs into mainline could be very long and cause
a lot of changes to dazuko.
So it would make sense to have a stable version for the reasons you gave 
above.
Avira is already working successful with release 4. This is the version 
that will
be shipped with the new avguard release.
So what about setting up a stable dazukofs release based on rel 4? There 
are already
several patches to support other kernel versions for this release as 
well as bug fixes.
Some more bug fixes will follow the next days. Maybe patches to support 
further
kernel versions, too.
These will all base on rel 4, since we (Avira) unfortunately have no 
time to switch
to a newer release right now.
But since rel 5 and 6 do mainly contain cosmetic changes, I think 4 is 
still a good
base to start from.
Another thing to mention is that every new supported kernel version 
makes it harder to apply
bug fixes, since those fixes often have to be applied for all versions.
So it would make things a lot easier to have an official dazukofs 
version for each supported kernel
instead of a dazukofs for one kernel version with a bunch of patches
to support other kernels.

So what do you think about this?
However, it would be good if we could somehow work together on this.

Greetings,
Lino Sanfilippo






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