IRC, freenode, #hurd, 2013-07-15

<teythoon> is there a libnetfs based translator that supports passive
  translators?
<youpi> I don't see any at the top of my head, only with active ones such
  as hostmux
<teythoon> I suspected as much since as far as I can tell libnetfs lacks
  some bits to make that even work
<braunr> teythoon: the problem with passive translators is persistence
<braunr> well, it's easy to store volatile passive translators in a
  libnetfs server
<braunr> but usually, there is no backing store for them
<braunr> ext2fs is the only one actually providing space to store their
  command line
<teythoon> sure, but at least file_get_translator needs to work so that
  procfs can serve a mounts node
<braunr> silly idea but
<braunr> don't you want to directly add it to the procfs translator ?
<teythoon> no, I think it's useful on its own
<braunr> ok
<braunr> then you may need to add the required support
<teythoon> it even doubles as normal command line tool
<teythoon> yes, I almost got it... or so I hope ;)
<braunr> ok
<teythoon> also, netfs_get_translator exists, so not supporting that feels
  like a bug to me
<teythoon> could also be useful for a potential devfs translator
<braunr> yes

<teythoon> uh, the code duplication in lib*fs is really bad :/
<teythoon> the code is mostly similar, though they have diverged and many
  little things are different so diffing them is very noisy
<teythoon> stuff like file names or identifiers
<teythoon> and I cannot figure out why my shiny passive translators are not
  started :/
<teythoon> % showtrans tmp/mounts
<teythoon> /hurd/mtab.fixed /
<teythoon> % wc --bytes tmp/mounts
<teythoon> 0 tmp/mounts
<teythoon> and no mtab translator around either

discussion.