[geeks] Versioning FIlesystem

[vance at neurotica.com]

On Fri, 23 May 2003, Jonathan C. Patschke wrote:

> > Doesn't all the automation go out the window if you decide to mount
> > the filesystem on another OS?
>
> It sure does.

I don't know if that's something that should be tolerated, which is why I
would rather have a new, incompatible (with existing drivers) filesystem.

> > I mean, if the versioning is in the spec for the filesystem, then
> > wouldn't a driver for that filesystem in any new OS would have to
> > support it?
>
> I guess that depends on whether you want it to strictly be a function of
> the filesystem or of the operating system.  Even if it is part of the
> filesystem, you've no guarantee that mounting that filesystem on another
> operating system will preserve versioning, because the OS would have the
> option of just updating the latest version, in hopes of getting
> quick-and-dirty support (a la NetBSD platform support).

I believe that it should be purely in the filesystem.  It (meaning the
versioning support) really needs to be required, though.  Is there any way
of insuring that?

> The point is that the OS is going to have to grok versioning at the
> namespace-level, anyway, and possibly in other places, so why reinvent
> the wheel by designing a new filesystem?

Well, I don't think that a new filesystem need be designed from the ground
up.  I just think that even if you use an existing filesystem as a base,
say, FFS, then it should be rendered incompatible with existing FFS
drivers, just to prevent people from munging a versioning filesystem using
an existing driver.  As was mentioned earlier, commands like 'rm' would
have to behave slightly differently.

Peace...  Sridhar