Redazione RHC : 16 August 2025 15:24
The first version of the Linux kernel, 6.17, has been released, with no changes to the bcachefs file system. And the reason isn’t due to any technical issues.
On August 10, Linus Torvalds announced the release of Linux 6.17-rc1. As is often the case, he was annoyed by some late RISC-V patches.
But what’s most noticeable is that the new release doesn’t contain the bcachefs code, although developer Kent Overstreet made small changes in late July and stated that the system’s “experimental” status would be removed in Linux 6.18. Torvalds didn’t accept them. It appears that bcachefs, which was first introduced into the kernel in version 6.7, won’t become “stable” in future releases.
This is especially important for Canonical, which plans to use the 6.17 kernel in the fall release of Ubuntu 25.10 Questing Quokka. The system has already entered the feature freeze phase, and the kernel will most likely remain unchanged. It’s very likely that version 6.17 will be the last release of 2025 and a candidate for the next Linux LTS release.
Meanwhile, controversy has erupted around bcachefs on the kernel developers’ mailing list. Overstreet has again criticized the competing file system Btrfs, pointing out that it was released with unresolved issues and is still unreliable—just think, Red Hat abandoned it in 2017. The very slogan of bcachefs—”a file system for Linux that doesn’t eat your data”—is also a clear dig at Btrfs.
But this time, the developers defended their competitor. Josef Bacik responded harshly to Overstreet, calling his behavior unacceptable and pointing out that many project participants consider him toxic. The discussion quickly devolved into personal accusations rather than a conversation about technology. Overstreet himself promised to no longer criticize Btrfs, but in response he received accusations of lying, offers to consult a psychologist, and even hints of mental disorders.
This isn’t the first time that the fate of Linux technologies has been decided not so much by technical merit, but by personal conflicts and The influence of a few people. History recalls the competition between EVMS and LVM2 in the early 2000s: the former had more features, but the latter won because its architecture was appreciated by kernel developers. EVMS soon disappeared.
The situation with bcachefs seems similar: despite its technological advantages, the project is at risk of being sidelined due to strained relationships and disagreements within the community. And this could mean a serious loss for the entire Linux ecosystem, not for technical reasons, but for human ones.
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