linux-kernel - Re: Reiser4. BEST FILESYSTEM EVER.

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Date:	Sun, 8 Apr 2007 13:03:23 -0400
From:	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>
To:	johnrobertbanks@...tmail.fm
Cc:	Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@...lub.uwaterloo.ca>,
	"H. Peter Anvin" <hpa@...or.com>, Ignatich <ignatich@...il.com>,
	reiserfs-list@...esys.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Reiser4. BEST FILESYSTEM EVER.

The reason why I ignore the tar+gzip tests is that in the past Hans
has rigged the test by using a tar ball which was generated by
unpacking a set of kernel sources on a reiser4 filesystem, and then
repacking them using tar+gzip.  The result was a tar file whose files
were optimally laid out so that reiser4 could insert them into the
filesystem b-tree without doing any extra work.

I can't say for sure whether or not this set of benchmarks has done
this (there's not enough information describing the benchmark setup),
but the sad fact of the matter is that people trying to pitch Reiser4
have generated for themselves a reputation for using rigged
benchmarks.  Hans's used of a carefully stacked and ordered tar file
(which is the same as stacking a deck of cards), and your repeated use
of the bonnee++ benchmarks despite being told that it is a meaningless
result given the fact that well, zero's compress very well and most
people are interested in storing a file of all zeros, has caused me to
look at any benchmarks cited by Reiser4 partisans with a very
jaundiced and skeptical eye.

Fortunately for you, it's not up to me whether or not Reiser4 makes it
into the kernel.  And if it works for you, hey, go wild.  You can
always patch it into your own kernel and encourage others to do the
same with respect to getting it tested and adopted.  My personal take
on it is that Reiser3, Reiser4 and JFS suffer the same problems, which
is to say they have a very small and limited development community,
and this was referenced in Novell's decision to drop Reiser3:

http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/09/27/suse-102-ditching-reiserfs-as-it-default-fs/

SuSE has deprecated Reiser3 *and* JFS, and I believe quite strongly it
is the failure of the organizations to attract a diverse development
community is ultimately what doomed them in the long term, both in
terms of support as the kernel migrated and new feature support.  It
is for that reason that Hans' personality traits that tend to drive
away those developers who would help them, beyond those that he hires,
is what has been so self-destructive to Reiser4.  Read the
announcement Jeff Mahoney from SUSE Labs again; he pointed out was
that reiser3 was getting dropped even though it performs better than
ext3 in some scenarios.  There are many other considerations, such as
a filesystem's robustness in case on-disk corruption, long term
maintenance as the kernel maintains, availability of developers to
provide bug fixes, how well the system performs on systems with
multiple cores/CPU's, etc.

						- Ted
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