Bcachefs Changes Merged into Linux 6.16, for 6.17: "We'll Be Parting Ways"

Last week was a Bcachefs pull request consisting of fixes and a new "journal_rewind" feature to aide as a disaster recovery tool for the file-system. But with that code being submitted as part of the ongoing Linux 6.16 release candidates, it drew criticism from Linus Torvalds and other kernel developers. However, one week later and that discussion having subsided a few days ago, Linus Torvalds ended up merging all of the code. But there is a concerning warning for the future of Bcachefs in the mainline Linux kernel.

Out of the blue, Linus Torvalds decided to merge last week's Bcachefs pull request. Coming in last night was the Git merge without any other commentary from Linus Torvalds or others. The discussion died down nearly a week ago but Torvalds apparently had second thoughts about allowing this Bcachefs feature code to still land for the ongoing Linux 6.16 cycle. At least the feature code is for the still-experimental file-system and can help in recovery situations.

Long story short, the code is now merged and will be part of the Linux 6.16-rc4 kernel due out on Sunday. Linus Torvalds then wrote in another thread in relation to Bcachefs fixes submitted yesterday:

I have pulled this, but also as per that discussion, I think we'll be parting ways in the 6.17 merge window.

You made it very clear that I can't even question any bug-fixes and I should just pull anything and everything.

Honestly, at that point, I don't really feel comfortable being involved at all, and the only thing we both seemed to really fundamentally agree on in that discussion was "we're done".

We'll see what that means for Linux 6.17 if Torvalds is planning to drop Bcachefs or just more strictly enforce bug-fixes-only during the RC period.