Re: JFFS2 Support for Large Flash Designs

["Jörn Engel" <joern@lazybastard.org>]

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