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Message-ID: <1ed30710481dd6739e6e9b4bd6f57c7c9d7e7de3.camel@kernel.org>
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2025 11:12:44 -0400
From: Jeff Layton <jlayton@...nel.org>
To: Jori Koolstra <jkoolstra@...all.nl>
Cc: Christian Brauner <brauner@...nel.org>, "skhan@...uxfoundation.org"
	 <skhan@...uxfoundation.org>, Khalid Aziz <khalid@...nel.org>, Tetsuo Handa
	 <penguin-kernel@...ove.sakura.ne.jp>, Jan Kara <jack@...e.cz>, Taotao Chen
	 <chentaotao@...iglobal.com>, NeilBrown <neil@...wn.name>, 
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, 
	syzbot+4e49728ec1cbaf3b91d2@...kaller.appspotmail.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add error handling to minix filesystem similar to ext4

On Thu, 2025-10-30 at 15:09 +0100, Jori Koolstra wrote:
> > 
> > I don't see a licensing issue. It's BSD licensed. Also, this is a
> > userland code, so we wouldn't need to worry about that too much.
> > 
> 
> Oh, my bad. I thought Minix (the OS) had some licensing incompatibilities
> with Linux, and this repo takes code from Minix. But that may be long in
> the past.
> 

Minix is BSD licensed too. That's not completely incompatible with the
GPL, but IANAL.

> > 
> > You're quite right though that userland replacements will need to meet
> > some criteria before we can rip out the in-kernel versions. This might
> > be a good discussion topic for next year's LSF/MM!
> 
> Would an in-tree but out of kernel implementation be an idea? Like how
> kselftest is integrated in the code, even though most of that also takes
> place in userland. That would guarantee a level of support, at least for
> the time being. I could take the code, verify it, and write some tests
> for in selftest.
> 

That's not a bad idea. We already have some userland code in the kernel
tree (the tools/ directory comes to mind). A directory with replacement
FUSE drivers for in-kernel filesystems could be a reasonable thing to
add. Anything we keep in-tree will need to be GPL-compatible though.

> And there is still the issue of what we do for the syzbot bugs until a
> more permanent solution is achieved.
> 

Yeah, that's a different issue.  Most likely we'll need to fix those in
the near term. Replacing minix.ko with a FUSE fs will take time
(years), even once we have a new driver in hand.

We'll need to mark the old driver deprecated and then wait a few
releases before we can rip it out.

> Anyway, this probably goes over my head as a clueless beginner. Just
> trying to see where I can help. Thanks a lot Jeff for you answers, I
> appreciate it.
> 

You're welcome. We all start out as beginners!
-- 
Jeff Layton <jlayton@...nel.org>