Thanks for the response, but you talked around my two main questions without addressing them. Chris asked to "state it clearly" so I put my main questions after
the ===>. I've reposted that initial reply in full, and then I responded to your specific comments.
I have no problems with BTRFS being available in Fedora for people to use. I have a huge problem with us making it the default... even for a subset of users. Making something default should be a huge lift, especially when we're talking about a file system. At a bare minimum there needs to be at least 1 production release of BTRFS and you need to explain fully the Redhat question. The onus is on the people proposing the change, not the other way around.
But if you can state clearly why it isn't persuasive in a way anyone
could possibly answer, I'm sure someone will try. And it would help
improve the proposal.
Making
something the default is a high bar to clear. There needs to be a
compelling reason why? The things listed in the proposal may be nice
for some people, but the uninformed masses don't care. Further
complicating the matter is that Redhat deprecated BTRFS. That to me
raises a big red flag that needs to be addressed.
===>
You need to clearly identify what gave Redhat heartburn and identify
what has changed to make you believe those issues have been addressed.
Another
thing that is particularly troubling is I can't find where it is stated
that there is a production release of BTRFS. I've seen statements that
it is "testing in production" - whatever that means... and that it has
been deployed on "millions of servers" - but the only statement as to
code stability just says that "The Btrfs code base is under heavy
development." I can't find an official statement from the project that
there has ever been a production release. This is concerning to me
because when I reported problems in the past I was told basically,
"silly you... BTRFS should only be used in non-critical systems - if
you're concerned about stability you shouldn't be running it."
===>
If we are considering BTRFS as a default, at a bare minimum there
should be an official production release from the project.
On Sat, Jun 27, 2020 at 6:25 pm, Gerald B. Cox <gbcox@bzb.us> wrote:
> Making something the default is a high bar to clear. There needs to
> be a compelling reason why? The things listed in the proposal may be
> nice for some people, but the uninformed masses don't care.
There is a large list of benefits, listed at
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/BtrfsByDefault#Benefit_to_Fedora.
...
That doesn't really address my point that most people don't care, especially those in the supposedly narrow range it is claimed is the target for this change. Additionally, Redhat claimed in 2017: "In the meantime, many of the features that btrfs provides are now
available via other more mature and stable storage technologies like
ext4, XFS, LVM, etc. We've put considerable effort into improving these
technologies to the point where current Red Hat offerings already cover
almost the entire btrfs feature set."
Again, the elephant in the room is:
===>
You need to clearly identify what gave Redhat heartburn and identify
what has changed to make you believe those issues have been addressed.
> Another thing that is particularly troubling is I can't find where it
> is stated that there is a production release of BTRFS. I've seen
> statements that it is "testing in production" - whatever that
> means... and that it has been deployed on "millions of servers" - but
> the only statement as to code stability just says that "The Btrfs
> code base is under heavy development." I can't find an official
> statement from the project that there has ever been a production
> release. This is concerning to me because when I reported problems in
> the past I was told basically, "silly you... BTRFS should only be
> used in non-critical systems - if you're concerned about stability
> you shouldn't be running it."
Josef has provided numerous statements in this thread regarding general
stability. See https://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Status for a
detailed breakdown.
And? I don't know about you, when dealing with file systems a chart with OK, Mostly OK and Unstable doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies. Especially when OK is defined as: "should be safe to use, no known major defficiencies" . "Should" raises a red flag with me, especially given the history of BTRFS. Again, if we're going to be making something the DEFAULT, it should have at least 1 production release. Where is it? I haven't been able to find one and I've asked multiple people and the response has always ducked the issue or been crickets.