A contributor offers to maintain the EFS driver, a file system from SGI IRIX from the 1990s, despite not using it. Developers debate whether to remove it because the tools to create it no longer work on modern hardware. The debate does not affect 99.9% of users, but it generates headlines that project an image of a democratic and meticulous community.
Dead code consuming volunteer maintainers' time 🕰️
Maintaining EFS involves hours of review, patches, and testing that could be dedicated to critical vulnerabilities or optimizing performance on current hardware. The contributor seeks merits in the open source community, not to solve a real problem. Meanwhile, the kernel's complexity grows, and stable funding for essential maintainers remains a pending issue that does not receive the same media attention.
The average citizen: what is EFS and why should I care? 🤔
For the common user, EFS is as relevant as a floppy disk in a Tesla. But the public debate about old software serves to distract from the kernel's serious problems: growing complexity and burned-out maintainers working without funding. In the end, the only thing that becomes clear is that someone wants their name in the changelog, even if no one knows what their code is for.