New GSoC task: xattr support

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@@ -104,3 +104,4 @@ See also the list of [Hurd-related X.org project ideas](http://wiki.x.org/wiki/H
 [[inline pages="community/gsoc/project_ideas/cdparanoia" show=0 feeds=no actions=yes]]
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+[[inline pages="community/gsoc/project_ideas/xattr" show=0 feeds=no actions=yes]]
diff --git a/community/gsoc/project_ideas/xattr.mdwn b/community/gsoc/project_ideas/xattr.mdwn
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+[[meta copyright="Copyright © 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc."]]
+
+[[meta license="""[[toggle id="license" text="GFDL 1.2+"]][[toggleable
+id="license" text="Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
+document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or
+any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant
+Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license
+is included in the section entitled
+[[GNU_Free_Documentation_License|/fdl]]."]]"""]]
+
+[[meta title="Implement xattr Support"]]
+
+Extended attributes (xattr) are a standardized, generic method for storing
+additional metadata along with a file (inode). Most modern UNIX filesystems
+support xattrs.
+
+In general, xattrs should be used sparingly, as they are less transparent than
+data stored as explicit file contents; however, there are some cases where they
+really make sense. The Hurd's variant of ext2 presently uses some additional
+fields in the inode to store Hurd-specific metadata: most notable passive
+translator settings. As these fields are Hurd-specific, they can't be accessed
+by the standard methods from Linux for example, so it's not possible to fully
+work with a Hurd filesystem on GNU/Linux (copy, backup etc.); and also, even
+when on Hurd, only tools that explicitely support the Hurd-specific information
+can handle them.
+
+Using extended attributes instead of custom fields for the Hurd-specific
+information would be very helpful.
+
+The most important goal of this project thus is to make the Hurd ext2fs server
+able to store and read the Hurd-specific information with extended attributes
+instead of the custom fields, so it become accessible from other systems. Being
+able to access the information through the standard xattr API instead of
+Hurd-specific calls is also desirable. (And in turn requires implementing the
+generic xattr API first, which can be useful for other purposes as well.)
+
+Completing this project will require digging into some parts of the Hurd, but
+it should be quite doable without previous Hurd experience. Some experience
+with xattrs might help a bit, but shouldn't be really necessary either.
+
+Some previous work on xattr support is available in [[GNU_Savannah_patch
+5126]], and might serve as a starting point.
+
+Possible mentors:
+
+Exercise: Implement support for different inode sizes (other than 128 bytes) in
+Hurd's ext2fs.