Recently, Linus Torvalds changed the maintainer status of the file system Bcachefs from externally maintained (Externally Maintained). This change is expected to have a significant impact on the file system. Marking as external maintenance means: 1. Changes to the Bcachefs file system will not enter the kernel mainline in the short term; 2. The file system will not be immediately moved out of the Linux Kerner kernel.
The background is as follows:
Developed under the leadership of Kent Overstreet, the Bcachefs file system is designed to provide high performance, reliability, and advanced features such as erasure coding and snapshot support. Initially the file system entered the Linux kernel mainline in 2023 and became an experimental file system.
However, the maintenance process of Bcachefs after entering the mainline was relatively bumpy. The main reason was that Overstreet and Linus Torvalds had many disputes over the merge window, release process and code review. In particular, the code merge was inconsistent with the Linux Kernel merge process.
Maintainer status changes:
On August 29, Linus Torvalds modified the maintainer status of the Bcachefs file system in the kernel's MAINTAINERS file, which is used to record the maintainer information of each subsystem of the kernel.
The external maintenance status usually means that the development of this component will be carried out outside the kernel. The mainline version kernel only retains the current version and will not easily accept new changes, which is somewhat similar to the ZFS file system (due to licensing issues, the ZFS file system always remains externally maintained, but Bcachefs does not have licensing issues).
This state of affairs is currently a mixed bag, and the good news is that at least Bcachefs will not be moved out of the kernel immediately, as Linus Torvalds has previously threatened to do. The bad news is that subsequent changes to Bcachefs are unlikely to make their way into the mainline version of the Linux kernel immediately.
This state therefore creates a problem: bit-rot, which refers to obsolescence due to lack of maintenance. After all, in the case of long-term lack of maintenance, users will gradually give up due to bugs, unless users turn to external Tree.
Kent Overstreet responded:
Kent Overstreet also posted a response in the discussion thread: I care deeply about the release process because I stand behind the code I release, I respond to almost all user bug reports and keep an eye on the test dashboard, and I want to provide the most stable and reliable code possible to my users.
Kent Overstreet also mentioned a similar experience with Debian packaging issues: Debian maintainers prioritized following project rules over merging working code, as this could result in broken builds and inaccessible file systems for users.
In response to the dispute between Kent Overstreet and Linus Torvalds, some community users also proposed to find a new engineer to accept and be responsible for communication. However, Kent Overstreet did not want to hand over all maintenance to others (to avoid overworking other engineers).
There's still a question about the future of the Bcachefs file system, and it would be a shame to see the project languish due to disputes over the release process, but neither Kent Overstreet nor Linus Torvalds are willing to budge, so that's the problem.
Related articles:
Linux kernel may delete bcachefs file system after maintainer clashes with Linus Torvalds