IDG Contributor Network: Linus Torvalds: Apple’s HFS+ is probably the worst file system ever

In December 2014, a critical vulnerability was found in Git that affected Mac OS X and Windows users. Even if the vulnerability didn’t affect Linux users, it could harm users who work on Windows or Mac systems.

A patch was released immediately, but that wasn’t soon enough to keep Linus from yelling out loud about how horrible Apple’s HFS+ file system is. As an Apple user, and as much as I love their hardware, I am not a fan of their software.

So what’s the basic problem with HFS+? Both NTFS and HFS+ are case insensitive, which means if you have a folder named ‘Linux’ or ‘linux’ they will treat them as the same folder, which understandably causes a lot of problems. Thomas Pfeiffer, a usability consultant to KDE, refers to an article by Brian Tiemann and says case-insensitive but case-preserving file systems are actually a good idea from a desktop user’s point of view.

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