[$] A filesystem corruption bug breaks loose
Kernel bugs can have all kinds of unfortunate consequences, from
inconvenient crashes to nasty security vulnerabilities. Some of the most
feared bugs, though, are those that corrupt data in filesystems. The
losses imposed on users can be severe, and the resulting problems may not
be noticed for a long time, making recovery difficult. Filesystem
developers, knowing that they will have to face their users in the real
world, go to considerable effort to prevent this kind of bug from finding
its way into a released kernel. A recent failure in that regard raises a
number of interesting questions about how kernel development is done.