Re: JFFS2 Support for Large Flash Designs

Jörn Engel
2007-03-07T18:11:31Z

Please keep me on the Cc: list.

On Wed, 7 March 2007 12:23:07 -0500, ian@brightstareng.com wrote:
>
> There are some positives of having components maintained outside
> the context of "linux".

Can you name those?

> Yaffs actually has a life outside linux. Using "outside the
> mainline" as an argument is weak at best. The 2.6 kernel
> makefile makes building a module outside the tree trivial -- so
> lots of the older build hassles and arguments no longer exist.

If building it were our only problem...

Problems that cause much more trouble are:
o Following the changing in-kernel APIs. I maintain several
out-of-tree projects myself and can tell you it is a pain. At times I
don't update my kernel for month because I lack the time to update the
cowlink patches.
o Problem support. Unless the code is in mainline, the only person that
will be willing to assist a user is the one responsible for the
out-of-tree project. Such support can be good, on average it tends to
be somewhat worse.
o Code maturity. Face it, there is often a reason why the code is not
in mainline.

How much of the above applies to YAFFS is a seperate question I don't
want to answer. But in general, being wary of out-of-tree code is a
good thing.

Jörn

--
"Error protection by error detection and correction."
-- from a university class