On Thu, Aug 06, 2026 at 06:19:49AM +0100, Matthew Wilcox wrote: > On Mon, Aug 03, 2026 at 10:52:19AM +0200, Amir Goldstein wrote: > > > The most important thing to know about famfs is that it CANNOT be used as > > > a > > > general purpose file system. It is for enabling file-based byte-level > > > access > > > (including direct mmap) to very large (e.g. 100TB) shared/disaggregated > > > memory appliances - which have become available during this long process, > > > and which are in need of Linux support. > > > > > > So famfs cannot be used by anybody who doesn't know why they need it; > > > Making > > > famfs standalone means it can't affect users who don't use it. And my > > > super- > > > mega-corp employer (Micron), as well as other memory companies, need it. > > > We do not intend to abandon it, but imagine if we did: fs/famfs/ should be > > > removed if the memory companies can't be bothered to maintain it. > > > > It does not work this way. > > When vfs maintainers accept standalone famfs they accept the burden of > > maintaining it whenever vfs internal APIs change even if the filesystem was > > abandoned by the mega-corps. > > That is the code of the push back for adding new filesystems. > > Removing the fs and breaking deployed systems is not an option for the vfs > > maintainers. > > Sure it is. We removed EFS just last month, because we decided that it > wasn't worth keeping any more. Just like we removed Itanium architecture > support (and a number of other architectures before that). We've removed > other filesystems in the past (xiafs, ext, surely a few others).
and freevxfs just this week because the one user/complainer said hch could let it die. --D > Yes, there are burdens on others by accepting this filesystem -- but if > it's a standalone VFS filesystem, those are felt by those who work on > the VFS. If it's part of FUSE, then it's felt by those who work on FUSE. > And we've already determined that those who work on FUSE are even more > overburdened than those who work on the VFS. > > famfs does not seem to be a natural fit for FUSE. It has needs unlike any > other Linux filesystem, and quite possibly unlike any other filesystem > that is to come. Rearchitecting FUSE to make famfs fit seems like a > very dodgy proposition to me. > >
