On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 01:22:55PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
quoted text
> 
> 
> On Wed, 25 Aug 2004, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > 
> > For one thing _I_ didn't decide about xattrs anyway.  And I still
> > haven't seen a design from you on -fsdevel how you try to solve the
> > problems with files as directories.
> 
> Hey, files-as-directories are one of my pet things, so I have to side with 
> Hans on this one. I think it just makes sense. A hell of a lot more sense 
> than xattrs, anyway, since it allows scripts etc standard tools to touch 
> the attributes.
> 
> It's the UNIX way.

Not if you allow link(2) on them.  And not if you design and market your
stuff as a general-purpose backdoor into kernel.  Note how *EVERY* *DAMN*
*OPERATION* is made possible to override by "plugins".  Which is the reason
for deadlocks in question, BTW.

Don't fool yourself - that's what Hans is selling.  Target market: ISV.
Marketed product: a set of hooks, the wider the better, no matter how
little sense it makes.  The reason for doing that outside of core kernel:
bypassing any review and being able to control the product being sold (see
above).

Shame that it got an actual filesystem mixed in with the marketing plans
and general insanity...