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RHEL is not continuing to bet on btrfs; they are deprecating it: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/7.4_Release_Notes

RHEL is not continuing to bet on btrfs; they are deprecating it: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/7.4_Release_Notes/chap-Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-7.4_Release_Notes-Deprecated_Functionality.html https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterp...

cyphar 9y ago
As was explained in depth in the HN comments, Red Hat's decision to not provide enterprise support is based on the fact that they don't have the necessary engineers to backport and maintain one of the fastest moving pieces of code in Linux today. All of their btrfs engineers moved to Facebook, and they're still working on btrfs improvements. There are many decisions involved in deciding what to provide enterprise support for, and whether you like it or not, technical merit is only one of many factors. So Red Hat's decision was likely not entirely based on technical merit. SUSE still provides enterprise support for btrfs (like we've always done), and there's still plenty of work being done from various large contributors. [I work at SUSE.]
- cmurf 9y ago
  $ git log --since=”2016-01-01” --pretty=format:”%an” --no-merges -- fs/btrfs | sort -u And then iterate for ext4 and xfs, and that comes to: 100 btrfs, 71 ext4, and 63 XFS contributors over those 18 months. They are all healthy ecofilesystems.
- usefulcat 9y ago
  It sounds like you think you're disagreeing with me, but I'm not sure how that's possible given the near total lack of opinion in my post. In any case, the aspect of the parent comment that I was thinking of when I posted that was the part where the parent points out that Ubuntu has ZFS and how that could be a problem for RHEL. Yes RHEL offers a number of other FS options, but to my knowledge only ZFS and btrfs currently offer checksumming, which IMO is a big differentiator vs. more conventional filesystems.
  - cyphar 9y ago
    I disagree with the use of the word "deprecating", and everyone has been parroting around the news as though Red Hat announced that btrfs causes machines to catch on fire. Red Hat never provided enterprise support for btrfs, it was a technical preview that didn't pan out to become fully supported as part of their distribution. It's barely a story (there are plenty of other filesystems Red Hat doesn't support), but it's a good opportunity to spread misinformation.
    - fnj 9y ago
      > I disagree with the use of the word "deprecating" Then you disagree (literally) with Red Hat's official statement as a matter of fact (not opinion). From Chapter 53, RHEL 7.4 release notes: "Btrfs has been deprecated ... Red Hat will not be moving Btrfs to a fully supported feature and it will be removed in a future major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux."[0] Pretty definitive. [0] https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/7.4_Release_Notes/chap-Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-7.4_Release_Notes-Deprecated_Functionality.html https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterp...
      - cyphar 9y ago
        The context that deprecated is used is "as a technical preview" which is different than saying that "in our opinion, btrfs is a deprecated technology and people shouldn't use it". So, while Red Hat did use that word, if you don't follow it up by explaining in what way support was deprecated then you're misleading people who aren't aware of the whole situation.

cyphar 9y ago

As was explained in depth in the HN comments, Red Hat's decision to not provide enterprise support is based on the fact that they don't have the necessary engineers to backport and maintain one of the fastest moving pieces of code in Linux today. All of their btrfs engineers moved to Facebook, and they're still working on btrfs improvements. There are many decisions involved in deciding what to provide enterprise support for, and whether you like it or not, technical merit is only one of many factors. So Red Hat's decision was likely not entirely based on technical merit. SUSE still provides enterprise support for btrfs (like we've always done), and there's still plenty of work being done from various large contributors. [I work at SUSE.]

cmurf 9y ago
$ git log --since=”2016-01-01” --pretty=format:”%an” --no-merges -- fs/btrfs | sort -u And then iterate for ext4 and xfs, and that comes to: 100 btrfs, 71 ext4, and 63 XFS contributors over those 18 months. They are all healthy ecofilesystems.
usefulcat 9y ago
It sounds like you think you're disagreeing with me, but I'm not sure how that's possible given the near total lack of opinion in my post. In any case, the aspect of the parent comment that I was thinking of when I posted that was the part where the parent points out that Ubuntu has ZFS and how that could be a problem for RHEL. Yes RHEL offers a number of other FS options, but to my knowledge only ZFS and btrfs currently offer checksumming, which IMO is a big differentiator vs. more conventional filesystems.
- cyphar 9y ago
  I disagree with the use of the word "deprecating", and everyone has been parroting around the news as though Red Hat announced that btrfs causes machines to catch on fire. Red Hat never provided enterprise support for btrfs, it was a technical preview that didn't pan out to become fully supported as part of their distribution. It's barely a story (there are plenty of other filesystems Red Hat doesn't support), but it's a good opportunity to spread misinformation.
  - fnj 9y ago
    > I disagree with the use of the word "deprecating" Then you disagree (literally) with Red Hat's official statement as a matter of fact (not opinion). From Chapter 53, RHEL 7.4 release notes: "Btrfs has been deprecated ... Red Hat will not be moving Btrfs to a fully supported feature and it will be removed in a future major release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux."[0] Pretty definitive. [0] https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux/7/html/7.4_Release_Notes/chap-Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux-7.4_Release_Notes-Deprecated_Functionality.html https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-US/Red_Hat_Enterp...
    - cyphar 9y ago
      The context that deprecated is used is "as a technical preview" which is different than saying that "in our opinion, btrfs is a deprecated technology and people shouldn't use it". So, while Red Hat did use that word, if you don't follow it up by explaining in what way support was deprecated then you're misleading people who aren't aware of the whole situation.