Bug#282758: [Fwd: Re: Bug#282758: Consider adding inotify patch]

[Robert Love <rml@novell.com>]

On Tue, 2004-11-30 at 09:48 +0000, Ross Burton wrote:

> What is the official word on getting inotify into the mainline kernel?

I wish I had a definitive answer as I would love to see inotify in
Debian.  Modern desktops really need the solutions that inotify provides
and dnotify does not come close.

But as with all things in the kernel, there is no absolutes.

I am very confident that I will get the patch in 2.6-mm in the near
future (couple of weeks).  Andrew and I have already spoken on the
matter.

I have further confidence that we will ultimately find inotify in the
mainline kernel--I would bet on it--but I cannot give any timeframes on
that.

I don't know if it matters, but the patch is in the Gentoo kernel.
Okay, that definitely should not matter. ;-)  But it will end up in both
the SUSE and Red Hat kernels, too, as we are moving much code over to
inotify.

To me, the bigger question is, what in user-space needs it or can use
it?  Gamin, a replacement for FAM and the GNOME desktop's file
notification system, has an inotify backend.  Beagle, a GNOME search and
information management infrastructure, requires inotify.  We are looking
at adding an inotify backend to Mono's FileSystemWatcher class, so all
Mono apps can use inotify.

Etc. etc.

It is rare to see such adoption of an API and kernel system without said
API being in the kernel.  Inotify has more serious users than dnotify.
That has to say something.

Best,

	Robert Love