BFS File-System Being Removed For Linux 7.4
Following EFS and FreeVxFS being removed in Linux 7.3 for these obsolete and rarely used file-systems in the Linux kernel, the latest now being removed to clear out old technical debt is BFS. BFS was used on SCO UnixWare OS for its boot partition.
Ethan Nelson-Moore who authored the patch to remove BFS argued for its removal with:
"BFS (not to be confused with BeFS, the BeOS filesystem) is the filesystem UnixWare uses for its boot partition. It has extremely limited functionality, only supporting contiguous files and no subdirectories. Even though the bfs driver is very small and is unlikely to cause future maintenance problems, given that the only type of data stored on such a partition is likely to be kernels and bootloader settings, there is very little reason anyone would want to access it from Linux. Other old Unix filesystems (efs, freevxfs) have been removed recently, and bfs is highly unlikely to have any users, so remove it as well. Retain the UAPI header to be safe."
One less old file-system in the kernel tree to worry about. These removals also come amid new guidelines on file-systems that would be accepted into the mainline Linux kernel tree to reduce the burden of so many different file-systems -- many that end up being poorly maintained and not necessarily widely used --- being within the kernel tree.
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