Talk:Smart File System

Citations

The article request citations, but other than saying it was written by me, the author of the Smart Filesystem, there's very little online or offline material that could confirm what I've written here. John Hendrikx (talk) 10:17, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your effort. Unfortunately Wikipedia articles need citations to be verifiable and demonstrate their notability. So maybe this article doesn't belong in Wikipedia. But don't worry, I'm not going to propose this article for deletion. -- intgr [talk] 23:20, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Cited in a patent

• US 8407192, Memon, Nasir & Pal, Anandabrata, issued 2013-05-26, assigned to Polytechnic Institute Of New York University  "Some file systems like the Amiga Smart File System (See, e.g., the document, 'Amiga Smart Filesystem,' available at http://www.xs4all.nl/ hjohn/SFS.) may attempt to move the whole file in such scenarios."

Note: Correct URL is http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS . davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:41, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

I suspect we already have a citation in the article for what that patent is saying, but just in case, what are the scenarios? Since this article is listed for deletion, the more valid sources we can add, the better the chances it will be kept. LjL (talk) 23:43, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

What are what scenarios? It was just a minor example of how filesystems did things, one of many in a list that was mentioned in the patent. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 23:48, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

It says "in such scenarios". Is it talking about scenarios where the filesystem may become fragmented, for instance? LjL (talk) 23:55, 19 October 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I wasn't paying all that much attention when skimming the patent, and I'm not familiar with the technicalities of the Smart File System. I just pulled that quote out to make it clear that the patent really did talk about this file system. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs) 05:02, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Please note that WP:PATENTS are not reliable sources — they're self-published sources and incentivised to use ambiguous and complicated language. -- intgr [talk] 07:03, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Okay... shouldn't the fact that there is a patent by an unrelated entity (at least that's my assumption) mentioning SFS be a legitimate hint to notability, though? Maybe it can't serve to verify facts in the article, but it's yet another thing showing that SFS is "on the radar" of a few people (other things being, I dunno, the fact it was implemented natively in three operating systems...). I note that WP:Verifiability is a policy, but WP:Notability is a guideline: if SFS is found to be notable through means that are not quite exactly the ones spelled out in WP:N, should it be obliterated just to follow a policy that's not even a policy? LjL (talk) 12:32, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Version numbers

What is the rationale for having a list of driver version numbers? QVVERTYVS (hm?) 12:59, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

It's standard to have latest release numbers in software-related articles, although it's usually in the top infobox. Currently the filesystem infobox doesn't contemplate version numbers, but that cannot be reason enough to forego mentioning them. What is the rationale for not including a very basic piece of information about the software the article is about?

I could certainly modify the filesystem infobox to include an entry for this datum if found warranted. LjL (talk) 13:05, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

We don't have version numbers in ext2, except the Linux kernel version that first included it. We have version numbers in ZFS to denote where certain features were introduced, but those are versions of the FS, not the driver implementation. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 13:24, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Not all filesystems work the same way. The forks of SFS aren't even all 100% compatible so the different driver versions basically correspond to "versions of the FS", as there is no concept of the filesystem's on-disk structure's version that is separate from the driver that operates it.

With filesystems that are part of Linux, it's usually enough to mention the Linux version because there is no separate versioning for its drivers, but only for Linux as as whole.

In any case, that some information is lacking from other articles is not a justification for removing it from here, unless you can show that it's missing for a good reason. As I said, software-related articles in general do list a latest version, and I'm yet to see a compelling argument for suppressing it here.

LjL (talk) 13:34, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Re: missing for a good reason, that's reversing the burden of proof from the policy WP:NOTEVERYTHING: "An encyclopedia article should not be a complete exposition of all possible details, but a summary of accepted knowledge regarding its subject." Are these (presumably mild) incompatibilities documented somewhere? A short discussion of them would be more interesting than an unexplained listing of version numbers. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 17:34, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

That's backwards, it's a basic piece of information about software as I said, and it's listed in every software article where it's relevant (it may not be listed in some other filesystems because it's less easy to pinpoint a version number for reasons some of which I have described). I honestly don't think we can find documentation of the incompatibilities without WP:SYNTH, though I agree that would be interesting, but that still doesn't make a brief mention of the version numbers invalid. Put them as small text in the infobox if you think they're being given WP:UNDUE weight. LjL (talk) 17:38, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Putting them in the infobox seems like a good compromise. How about parenthesized mention in the OS field? QVVERTYVS (hm?) 17:42, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Done. Although I think the filesystem infobox should probably provide a version field (for the filesystem itself if sensible, for drivers otherwise, or both). LjL (talk) 17:47, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

Max filename length

Filename#Comparison of filename limitations say its max length is "32,000" but this page (Smart File System) says that the max filename length is "107 characters". Which is it? How can I have really long filenames in Windows 7 (like 32,000 characters long)? --NoToleranceForIntolerance (talk) 08:46, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Indeed, maybe mixed up with "Paths can be up to 32,000 characters". See SFS/FS/Distribution/SmartFilesystem/Sources/fs/fs.h:#define MAX_NAME_LENGTH (100) -- Polluks ★ 22:23, 24 February 2020 (UTC)