Re: [Yaffs] Porting yaffs to NetBSD

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian McDonnell [mailto:ian@brightstareng.com]
> Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 2:52 PM
> To: Martin Fouts
> Cc: yaffs@lists.aleph1.co.uk
> Subject: Re: [Yaffs] Porting yaffs to NetBSD
>
>
> I just wanted to reply and say that if you would consider
> contributing your upper VFS layer to the project, that would
> be welcomed by me at least. Your lower layers for i/o to the
> NAND device may be of general use too, even if they are
> specific to your hardware; they could serve as a sample
> implementation.

We can't put any of our code under the GPL, but we plan, eventually, to
contribute the VFS layer to NetBSD under the BSD license. Any changes we
make to yaffs itself, we plan, of course, to contribute directly back to
Aleph1, as with the patch I sent the other day that, alas, didn't work.

> Cleaning-up the general structure of Yaffs is something that
> has been discussed. So if you find you have to fix up
> headers, rename macros, add abstractions etc., I think that's
> all moving in the right direction. Having versions of Yaffs
> branch and diverge doesn't help anyone in the long run. And
> there's nothing better than a new port to flush out issues
> that, once addressed, generally improve code quality and
> program structure.

I agree completely. We're reluctant to make changes to yaffs itself so
that we don't end up with a divergent branch, but would be very happy to
work with fellow yaffers on the porting issues.

>
> As a side: if Yaffs were used only in the loadable module
> form on NetBSD, could it not be use/licensed under the GPL?

I, of course, am not a lawyer, but my reading of the GPL says yes. The
yaffs VFS layer we're doing is supposed to be usable as an LKM, but I
haven't tested that.

For our own purposes, our legal folks prefer to avoid the GPL, which is
why we're investigating licensing yaffs-direct rather than going the
userspace route.