[Yaffs] PATCH!!! PATCH!!! (Was Sorry state of YAFFS2)

[Charles Manning]

Thank you for this Villatora

On Saturday 29 October 2005 01:12, Villatora Virgilio wrote:

> Hi all guys.
> I'm new in yaffs...even if my subscription was made in June.
> I'm reading this trail between Sergei and other yaffers since several
> weeks.
>
> I'm interested in yaffs because the company I work for has delivered a
> product with yaffs (first version) aboard. We have the need (as a lot of
> companies working with NAND flash devices, I think) to switch to yaffs 2.
> This is because 512 byte page devices are going in obsolescence.

What you say here is very important. YAFFS2 came about because of the need to 
address these larger page chips and wider geometries.

>
> This is a problem that involves companies that buy lot of devices at a time
> (not one or two pieces.... :(   ). Then it's very important, for the future
> of yaffs filing system, to be able to mount yaffs2 as root ...

Ok, as shown, yaffs can work fine as root. There is no difference in the 
"working as root" part between yaffs and yaffs2. 

But you do raise an interesting point: YAFFS2 is very important, yet we get 
very little support from the industry. The original work for YAFFS1 was 
commissioned and supported (thanx Toby Churchill and Brightstar engineering), 
yet the yaffs2 stuff was something I did on my own with my own time and money 
as an unfunded activity. I have abandoned some of my other projects to make 
this happen.

YAFFS2 is important for a few reasons:
1) The need to support larger file systems drives designs towards larger 
parts.
2) Obsolescence will drive people to larger parts.
3) Costs will drive people to larger parts.

>
> I have to admit that Sergei is angry for some justifiable reasons... even
> if he is TOO angry...
>
> The chance to mount yaffs file system as root is very important for a lot
> of embedded systems where costs have to be taken low... (It,s not cost
> effective to have several devices on your board...)


One company I know of has saved over $2M per year in parts costs just by 
switching to YAFFS2 + 2k pages. I expect there are others who will save even 
more. $2M on the bottom line is big money for most companies.

Folks: YAFFS and YAFFS2 are helping making many people pots of money. Helping 
YAFFS is helping yourself.

There are many ways you can help YAFFS, including:
* Sponsoring/commissioning work or just straight-forward donation.There are 
many things that can be done to make YAFFS& YAFFS2 better.
* Like PalmSource has done, get involved inactive testing.
* Sponsoring test equipment etc.


>
> Then I would give you a suggestion.
> Please, try to patch this problem as quickly as possible.
> The future of YAFFS2 is by the way...
>
> I think that Charles Manning would not be happy to see his creature so
> mistreated....

I'm not quite sure what you mean here, but basically I get a big buzz from 
helping people solving their technical problems.  By conservative estimates 
there are approx 1 million devices out there running YAFFS. Many people have 
struggled to find a robust fs and YAFFS has saved numerous products and even 
the companies that rely on them.

Positive feedback from those people easily makes up for the negative energy 
one sometimes encounters.

-- CHarles