Charles Manning wrote:
On Thursday 29 May 2008 09:24:14 Mike Frysinger wrote:
On Wed, May 28, 2008 at 4:59 PM, Charles Manning wrote:
I'm the author of YAFFS. This is not in the kernel tree, but is fairly
easy to integrate by just pulling a tarball and running patch-in script.
I am curious as to whether people consider the current mechanism "good
enough" or whether it is worth the effort trying to get YAFFS into the
kernel tree.
Pros I can see:
* In tree means better testing (maybe).
* Keeping current with kernel API changes.
Cons:
* More effort for YAFFS maintainers (me mostly).
* Effort getting code into kernel coding style (unless I can get a waiver
on this).
i'm pretty sure you're going to have to cull all of the
LINUX_VERSION_CODE checks. that means the in tree yaffs code is only
going to track mainline kernel versions. i dont know whether you
consider that a pro or con (i say it's a pro), but if you want/need
those checks, you're basically going to have to maintain two forked
versions ...
-mike
The main reason for those version checks is that YAFFS tries to acknowledge
that not everyone just uses the latest kernel. Many embedded developers are
using older kernels (for various valid reasons) (though this practice is
probably on the decline) and I would like to continue supporting that.
I would expect that this would make for two versions of yaffs_fs.c: the CVS
one for all comers and the in-tree version which is cleaned.
Submitting code into the kernel doesn't mean you have to maintain both
in-tree and out-of-tree versions. Once the code is accepted into the
tree, I suggest that all subsequent development is done on the in-tree
version. Leave the CVS version for people who run older kernels - don't
try to keep the two in step. If users of older kernels want a new
feature or bugfix from the in-tree version, let them backport it; they
probably do so routinely already for other kernel components anyway.
I maintained some kernel code out of tree for a while. In my experience,
once code is accepted in the mainline kernel tree, the effort in
supporting and maintaining it dropped dramatically. It can take a lot of
work to get it accepted but the effort is well worth it if you're
successful.
I say yes, work on submitting yaffs. :)
--
James Chapman
Katalix Systems Ltd
http://www.katalix.com
Catalysts for your Embedded Linux software development
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