Google engineer has incurred the wrath of Linus Torvalds

[or1k]

A controversy erupted this week over Google engineer Steven Rostedt's proposals for using "inode" in file systems.

An inode is a unique metadata identifier in Linux. For weeks there has been a debate on the kernel mailing list about the role and purpose of inode. Many believe that they are still needed for archiving files with the tar utility. However, Torvalds expressed the opposite opinion, stating that it is time to abandon the outdated concept, since inode numbers are no longer truly unique in modern file systems.

Despite this, Rostedt suggested implementing global uniqueness of all inode numbers in Linux to solve potential problems. Torvalds then accused (https://lkml.org/lkml/2024/1/26/1013) the engineer of misunderstanding and over-complicating the code, as well as copying the VFS layer features of the file system without realizing the consequences.

Quote

I don't want to see a single eventfs patch that doesn't have an actual bug report associated with it. And the next time I see you copying VFS features (or any other major features) without understanding what the hell they do or why they do it, I'm going to put you in my spam filter for a week.

The full message is in the image. 

After the criticism, Rostedt admitted his gaps in understanding inode and promised to look into the matter. Torvalds, in his turn, did not continue the argument, citing lack of time due to other tasks.