[RFC] Remove NTFS kernel support

[Doug Barton]

Robert Watson wrote:

> If you axe write support, does the maintainability of the kernel ntfs
>  get easier?  As I understand it, the write support is rather
> limited, and debugging and fixing read support is generally a lot
> easier for a variety of reasons.

The few serious attempts I've made to use the NTFS in the base to write
data were unsuccessful, and given the instability of the code I didn't
push it very hard since I didn't want to scramble my data.

> There's also a lot less risk to data. :-)

Right. :)

> I think it's reasonable to surmise that, given our rather limited
> write support currently, the kernel ntfs code is used for data
> migration and limited sharing to FreeBSD in various forms, but that
> msdofs remains the general data transport of choice...

Read support that works is better than R/W support that doesn't, yes. So 
if someone wants to step up to maintain this and axing write support 
gets us something that actually works, who am I to argue?

I think keeping the goal(s) of R/W support in the base, and/or working 
FUSE in mind is a Good Thing, but getting a working solution to at least 
one of these problems would be a big step forward.

Doug

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