Fuse4X is merging into OSXFuse project

[Anatol Pomozov]

Hi, everyone.

I want to announce a big news related to fuse4x. The project is in
active stage of merging into osxfuse http://osxfuse.github.com/ The
reason why fuse4x does it is that both fuse4x and osxfuse do the same
thing - they both try to bring FUSE API to macosx. And it is better if
there will be one open reference implementation to avoid user's
confusion and waste of development resources.

Benjamin Fleischer works on pulling fuse4x changes into osxfuse. Some
of the changes already been merged some other are in the queue.
Benjamin will also make osxfuse build system more package manager
friendly, so osxfuse could be added to Macports and Homebrew in the
future.

Recently I released my latest changes as 0.9.2 version and it probably
be the last fuse4x release. If you are a new user I recommend to look
at osxfuse http://osxfuse.github.com/. I encourage existing users to
look at osxfuse as well. osxfuse and fuse4x are API compatible (they
both implement FUSE API) and transition should be very smooth.

[Fernando Figueiredo]

Well, I'll probably sound like a jackass on this post, but I don't think there's a better way of putting it out, and I'm a bit pissed right now to be honest, so I'm sorry in advance.

I can't say I'm thrilled with this news. First of all, I've noticed Fuse4X's development has slowed almost to a halt in the latest months - not that I care about that specifically, Fuse4x has been working well enough for me, although the decaying support here on the mailling list is more worrying to me. Besides, I know we all have our real lives, and Fuse4x development most likely doesn't pay your bills, but tell me something, honestly: Have you lost interest and/or just can't work on Fuse4x anymore, and "merging" with OSXFuse is just an easy way out without hurting your ego, or are you guys really working together?

Now, considering in the beggining of the year you and Benjamin were bickering over whatever, if you're really working together, then it sounds like you got into an agreement, that's good. But the fact remains that Fuse4x is the most accepted and supported solution on the OSS community for OSX, and hence for all package managers on OSX also. The fact that OSXFuse - what of it being almost as old as Fuse4x - still has to be adapted to be added on package managers says a lot about its code quality, and the project's quality as whole. Also, saying that this adaptation will happen "in the future" sounds pretty vague to me. Of course I'm not looking for time frames since the merging has just been announced but, are the package maintainers aware of this new development? Because I'm sure they might be able to help with some more guidelines for this transition.

So, considering all this, I'm left here hoping this is really a collaboration, and not you dropping Fuse4x and kicking us into OSXFuse. Oh well, I guess having OsxFuse is better than nothing, right?

[Anatol Pomozov]

Hi, Fernando

On Fri, Oct 12, 2012 at 9:14 PM, Fernando Figueiredo
<fernan...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, I'll probably sound like a jackass on this post, but I don't think
> there's a better way of putting it out, and I'm a bit pissed right now to be
> honest, so I'm sorry in advance.
>
> I can't say I'm thrilled with this news. First of all, I've noticed Fuse4X's
> development has slowed almost to a halt in the latest months - not that I
> care about that specifically, Fuse4x has been working well enough for me,
> although the decaying support here on the mailling list is more worrying to
> me. Besides, I know we all have our real lives, and Fuse4x development most
> likely doesn't pay your bills, but tell me something, honestly: Have you
> lost interest and/or just can't work on Fuse4x anymore, and "merging" with
> OSXFuse is just an easy way out without hurting your ego, or are you guys
> really working together?

There was a discussion between me and Benjamin several months about
merging these projects. We agreed to merge it under osxfuse brand.
There is bunch of changes were pulled from fuse4x repository to
osxfuse including numerous fixes and code refactorings. There is one
known compatibility issue in osxfuse that was not resolved yet and
also osxfuse requires changes in its build system, but in general
everything looks really good.

> Now, considering in the beggining of the year you and Benjamin were
> bickering over whatever, if you're really working together, then it sounds
> like you got into an agreement, that's good.

Yes we have agreed that it is better to have one project instead of
several projects that try to resolve the same issues again and again.

> But the fact remains that
> Fuse4x is the most accepted and supported solution on the OSS community for
> OSX, and hence for all package managers on OSX also. The fact that OSXFuse -
> what of it being almost as old as Fuse4x - still has to be adapted to be
> added on package managers says a lot about its code quality, and the
> project's quality as whole.

The main problem here is osxfuse build system - it is pretty much the
same as in macfuse. The complicated set of build scripts is the reason
why macfuse was removed from Homebrew several years ago.

From other side I rewrote build scripts for fuse4x from scratch. It is
very simple and elegant build system that allows to use fuse4x in
various package managers. Benjamin said that he works on rewriting
osxfuse build system and it will be available in the future (Benjamin
might add more information here).

After that osxfuse will be added to package managers - and I'll be
happy to help with it.

> Also, saying that this adaptation will happen
> "in the future" sounds pretty vague to me.

Nobody removes fuse4x from packages managers. It will stay in
Homebrew, macports and fink. You can keep using it safely for several
years. And there is nothing scary that osxfuse package will be added,
these 2 packages will co-exist for some time for smoother migration to
osxfuse.

> Of course I'm not looking for
> time frames since the merging has just been announced but, are the package
> maintainers aware of this new development? Because I'm sure they might be
> able to help with some more guidelines for this transition.
>
> So, considering all this, I'm left here hoping this is really a
> collaboration, and not you dropping Fuse4x and kicking us into OSXFuse. Oh
> well, I guess having OsxFuse is better than nothing, right?

Well first of all fuse4x and osxfuse have the same goal - provide fuse
api implementation for macosx. Both these projects are based on
macfuse and try to fix known bugs with its own way. But there is no
reason whey it should be 2 different implementations of fuse on
macosx. In fact having only one open-source implementation is *much*
better in a long run as it will reduce user's confusion and waste of
resources.

[Mike Shal]

Hi Anatol,

Thanks for all your hard work in fuse4x and getting a stable FUSE
implementation in OSX!

-Mike

[Daniel Bethe]

Yeah, good job on it.  I'm with the MacZFS team, as I had said earlier on this list.  I would love to see if anyone has tried zfs-fuse on fuse4x, and to see if that can eventually be merged with MacZFS in the way that zfs-fuse has merged with ZFSonLinux.  Nobody replied to my request for information or contact.

Thanks for your efforts though!  ^_^

---

From: Mike Shal <mar...@gmail.com>
To: fus...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, 17 October 2012, 13:06
Subject: Re: Fuse4X is merging into OSXFuse project

[Ask Bjørn Hansen]

On Friday, October 12, 2012 9:14:02 PM UTC-7, Fernando Figueiredo wrote:

Well, I'll probably sound like a jackass on this post, but I don't think there's a better way of putting it out, and I'm a bit pissed right now to be honest, so I'm sorry in advance.

I can't say I'm thrilled with this news. First of all, I've noticed Fuse4X's development has slowed almost to a halt in the latest months - not that I care about that specifically, Fuse4x has been working well enough for me, although the decaying support here on the mailling list is more worrying to me. Besides, I know we all have our real lives, and Fuse4x development most likely doesn't pay your bills, but tell me something, honestly:

"Most likely doesn't pay your bills"... Really? You don't say. The code is under an open source license. You are free to work on the code yourself, hire others to do so, setup a company to give support or anything else that suits your fancy.

Anatol, thank you for maintaining the fuse port and working on getting your changes moved to osxfuse!

Ask 

[Fernando Figueiredo]

... 

There was a discussion between me and Benjamin several months about
merging these projects. We agreed to merge it under osxfuse brand.
There is bunch of changes were pulled from fuse4x repository to
osxfuse including numerous fixes and code refactorings. There is one
known compatibility issue in osxfuse that was not resolved yet and
also osxfuse requires changes in its build system, but in general
everything looks really good.

... 

Yes we have agreed that it is better to have one project instead of
several projects that try to resolve the same issues again and again. 

 

 ... 

 

 Well first of all fuse4x and osxfuse have the same goal - provide fuse 

api implementation for macosx. Both these projects are based on 

macfuse and try to fix known bugs with its own way. But there is no 

reason whey it should be 2 different implementations of fuse on  

macosx. In fact having only one open-source implementation is *much* 

better in a long run as it will reduce user's confusion and waste of resources.

 

 

Alright, I'm glad you two settled down your differences. And don't get me wrong, I wasn't saying that merging is a bad thing, duplication of effort is never a good thing. I'm just concerned about the reasons for the merging, and the way they are being handled, lest users and packagers that have so far favored Fuse4X over OSXFuse aren't alienated when the time comes that Fuse4x is no longer suported at all (by packagers, I mean).

 

Nobody removes fuse4x from packages managers. It will stay in 

Homebrew, macports and fink. You can keep using it safely for several
years. And there is nothing scary that osxfuse package will be added,
these 2 packages will co-exist for some time for smoother migration to
osxfuse.

I know that, but at some point Fuse4X will be hopelessly outdated and unmaintained, or maybe some filesystems will not even work correctly with it because of bugs that won't be fixed, that packagers will no longer see the point in letting it linger on the repositores, so at that point people will have to migrate to OSXFuse like it or not. Hence my concern about how things are being handled.

 

... 

After that osxfuse will be added to package managers - and I'll be 
happy to help with it.

Great, knowing that you're still going to be actively involved is enough to reassure me :-) 

 

Thanks, and cheers!

Fernando

[grahamperrin]

Great news, thanks for sharing!

At <http://fuse4x.1054701.n5.nabble.com> until today the pinning of topics
was outdated (sorry about that).

This topic is now pinned.



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[Bradley Giesbrecht]

+1