Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 26 Aug 2004 03:55:00 -0700 | From | Andrew Morton <> | Subject | Re: silent semantic changes with reiser4 |
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Spam <spam@tnonline.net> wrote: > > > > > Spam <spam@tnonline.net> wrote: > >> > >> > >> > >> > Spam <spam@tnonline.net> wrote: > >> >> > >> >> Yes, for example documents, image files etc. The multiple data > >> >> streams can contain thumbnails, info about who is editing the file > >> >> (useful for networked files) etc. Could be used for version handling > >> >> and much more. > >> > >> > All of which can be handled in userspace library code. > >> > >> > What compelling reason is there for doing this in the kernel? > >> > >> > >> Because having user space tools and code will make it not work with > >> everything. Keeping stuff in the kernel should make the new features > >> transparent to the applications. > >> > >> Applications that support the new features will benefit, all others > >> will continue to work without destroying data. > > > Sorry, but that all sounds a bit fluffy. Please provide some examples. > > We already had the examples with cp and mv. Both should continue to > work and the files will still be copied. The same with Konqueror and > Nautilus. Files and their meta-files/streams/attributes will be > retained as long as applications are using the OS API. > > However, if things are to implemented in user-space, then old > applications will not work correctly and there is risk that all the > extra information will be lost or corrupted. > > You said it would be socially hard. I think it would be very much > close to impossible to get it right. Imagine that Gnome and Nautilus > would implement support for these. I doubt that cp, mv, KDE, mc, > app-xyz would implement this anytime soon and in the meantime the > data is at risk. >
No. All of the applications which you initially identified can be implemented by putting the various bits of data into a single file and getting applications to agree on the format of that file.
For example, some image file formats already support embedded metadata, do they not?
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