Status of adding Reiser4 to the Linux kernel

Question

I used the Reiser4 fs for some time and would love to see it get into the mainline kernel. I would think the project can still go forward even if Hans is not able to contribute these days. Is there any mention on a mailing list or elsewhere of plans to get Reiser4 into the mainline kernel?

Answer 1

The reason isn't so much technical or necessarily political, but perhaps pragmatic. Edward Shishkin says that before it goes mainline it needs vendor support

Hello Michael. I don't see any technical obstacles for Reiser4 inclusion. There are only organisation ones: I don't think it will be accepted without support from some vendor. One company might have an interest in developing Reiser4, as they said, however, there is no essential progress in this direction for now.. Thanks, Edward.

Answer 2

Surely the project can still go forward even if Hans is not able to contribute these days.

Perhaps that's true, but after Hans Reiser was convicted of murder in 2007, the company he founded and operated that was truly responsible for the filesystem code stopped operating, and things seemed to quickly grind to a halt.

Apparently Edward Shishkin is the current maintainer, or at least appears to be. He's noted a few times since 2009 that he wanted to push for mainline in the 2011-ish timeframe, with the last message suggesting the goal was back in January. The last Reiser4 patch is for kernel 2.6.38, while 2.6.39 is the current version and 2.6.40 3.0.0 is the current release candidate.

In the linked mailing list message, it's clear that proposing Reiser4 for being mainlined isn't necessarily a political challenge, but is at least a technical one. In the linked mailing list post, Edward noted that:

Once we adjust reiser4 to upcoming VFS scalability changes, all the to-do-for-inclusion issues will be resolved.

It's not clear if this is done or not.