linux-kernel - Re: Patent or not patent a new idea

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Date:	Tue, 26 Jun 2007 13:38:58 +1000
From:	Neil Brown <neilb@...e.de>
To:	Graeme Sheppard <nodes@...lion.net>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, linux-fsdevel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Patent or not patent a new idea

On Tuesday June 26, nodes@...lion.net wrote:
> Neil Brown wrote:
> > 
> > Sounds a lot like "RAIF" - ask google for details.
> 
> I did not know about RAIF. RAIF "merges" separate filesystems? That is a
> good idea in itself.
> 
> My idea is for driver that provides a filesystem from image files it
> controls. Because it knows these resources it uses access in tandem to
> attain performance.

???
(reads original description in more detail).

So... the filesystem images are identical in both copies, and the
"interesting" bit is that the image is just a file on some filesystem.

So could I implement your idea by:

  dd if=/dev/zero of=/1/bigfile count=lotsandlots
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/2/bigfile count=lotsandlots
  losetup /dev/loop1 /1/bigfile
  losetup /dev/loop2 /2/bigfile
  mdadm -C /dev/md0 --level=raid1 --raid-disks=2 /dev/loop1 /dev/loop2
  mkfs /dev/md0
  mount /dev/md2 /space

??

Why would you bother?  Well, I do it a lot of code testing, but I
would be hard pressed to make a case for that sort of config in
production.

You said:
>  1) the disks need
>    not be the same size or from the same manufacturer; 2) the supporting code
>    would be cross-platform.

md/raid already works happily with different sized drives from
different manufacturers (for raid1, it only uses as much space as the smaller
drive provides, For raid0 it uses it all).
I don't know what you mean by '2'.

So I still cannot see anything particularly new.  What am I missing?

NeilBrown
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