Hopefully leading to more timely updates to the Zstd compression code within the Linux kernel is a decision to add on a co-maintainer of the in-kernel Zstandard code.
While there was the recent Zstd 1.5.7 patches for updating the in-kernel code, Zstd updates to the Linux kernel’s copy have been far and few in between. Even with more Linux file-systems making use of Zstd for transparent file compression, Zstd module compression, and other Zstd compression/decompression uses appearing within the Linux kernel, the Zstd code within the kernel tree has lagged behind the upstream Zstd sources. Often times far out of date.
In hopefully helping out the situation moving forward, David Sterba of SUSE who is known for his Btrfs development work is stepping on as co-maintainer of the in-kernel Zstd code.
Sterba explained in this patch updating the MAINTAINERS entry:
“Recently the ZSTD tree has been removed from linux-next due to lack of updates for last year. As there are several users of ZSTD in kernel we need to keep the code maintained and updated. I’ll act as a backup to get the ZSTD upstream to linux, Nick is OK with that.”
Meta engineer Nick Terrell appreciates the additional help and acknowledged he’s not always the most plugged into the Linux kernel development activity and so with Sterba’s co-maintenance will hopefully yield a brighter in-kernel Zstd future moving forward.
That MAINTAINERS entry update is queued via the “cryptodev” crypto subsystem development code ahead of the upcoming Linux 6.15 merge window.
