[Discuss] Versioning File Systems

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

On 05/03/2012 10:09 PM, Shankar Viswanathan wrote:
> Talking about versioning filesystems, why haven't they been popular on
> Unix/Linux? I know RSX-11 and VMS implemented versioning filesystems
> which were used quite extensively in development environments. I am
> aware of VFS implementations for Linux such as ext3cow and NILFS but
> haven't actually seen them used anywhere. I have always wondered why
> we don't see more uses of this idea.
>
> I know ClearCase implements a virtual filesystem to create a "view" of
> the versioned object, but I don't believe the versioning is handled
> natively in the filesystem -- the versioning I think is handled by a
> separate database.
I have not used ClearCase for years, but we may need to start. ClearCase
is essentially a code management system. As a developer I never liked
file versioning. under VMS. I felt it left too much clutter. But, it
does provide some protection if you inadvertently clobber a file. But,
emacs has a similar way to create versions. Normally I use the single
backup (eg ~), but you can set it for multiple versions.

-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
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