I think it might somewhat be required for interoperability with some other filesystems (exfat under some conditions, hpfs likewise). Moreover, as complex as th

I think it might somewhat be required for interoperability with some other filesystems (exfat under some conditions, hpfs likewise). Moreover, as complex as the problem can be, it might come in handy to have a unicode normalization subsystem in the kernel for other modules to use. I don't think it's in the FS, but it's now a feature of the kernel that various FS can choose to wire up with, and expose knobs to the user to leverage it. Besides that, whether they do or not is their choice. But I believe this subsystem is going to get used a lot more than some other, obscure kernel areas ;)