A dispute between developers has led to the shelving of a new file system feature in Linux 6.17. The issue began when developer Kent Overstreet submitted minor changes to the experimental bcachefs code, which was not accepted by kernel leader Linus Torvalds. Overstreet criticized rival Btrfs, saying it had design issues that never been adequately resolved, and claiming he has personally experienced problems with it.
However, his criticism sparked a heated debate, with ext4 developer Ted T’so labeling him as “extremely toxic” and accusing him of ignoring the primary point of Josef Bacik’s message. Overstreet responded with a reasoned rebuttal, but his behavior was seen as unacceptable by many in the community.
The incident highlights how personality and emotion can often trump technical excellence in kernel debates. This has significant implications for Linux users, as bcachefs is a promising next-gen copy-on-write filesystem that could have addressed some of the storage issues plaguing the OS.
Canonical’s Ubuntu 25.10 is already planning to use kernel 6.17, which may be the last version of 2025 and potentially the next Long Term Support (LTS) version of the kernel. Despite the loss of bcachefs, Linux remains a popular choice for users and developers alike.
Source: https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/15/sad_end_of_bcachefs