public inbox for ecos-maintainers@sourceware.org
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
* NAND & YAFFS
@ 2009-05-13 13:59 Ross Younger
  2009-05-13 14:22 ` Simon Kallweit
                   ` (2 more replies)
  0 siblings, 3 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: Ross Younger @ 2009-05-13 13:59 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ecos-maintainers; +Cc: Rutger Hofman, Simon Kallweit, Sergei Gavrikov

Dear maintainers,

We (eCosCentric) have been working on a NAND layer for eCos and integration
with YAFFS, which we intend to contribute. Unfortunately, due to commercial
considerations - including licensing and technical discussions with Aleph
One - we have previously had to keep quiet about it. We can now talk about
this work publicly, and would like to explore how the best overall solution
for the eCos project can be pulled together.

Obviously two alternative implementations and further duplication of work is
best avoided, so we have opened a discussion with Rutger to see if there are
ways in which we can work together to try and find a common "best of breed"
technical solution.

It seems sensible that the maintainers are aware of this discussion and have
the opportunity to provide input and direction.

A quick overview of our status:

* We have developed a NAND interface library, drivers for a single
chip+board combination and a synthetic pseudo-device, and an adaptation
layer to bring YAFFS into eCos via the fileio layer. Specific further
support for RedBoot is also in the works.
* The NAND layer is complete and fully documented; YAFFS integration is
approaching completion.
* Written testcases exist for the NAND layer and YAFFS, and they will be
subject to the same rigorous in-house automated test processes we use for
all eCosPro code.
* All of our code is intended to be contributed back to eCos, except of
course the GPL parts of YAFFS itself. We have included in our plan building
YAFFS as a separate .epk file so users who are happy with the GPL can easily
download it and install using ecosadmin.tcl.

We had looked at Rutger's early work, but decided against using it. Part of
the reason for this was that integrating alpha code from other sources is
always difficult, and we were (still are) operating under commercial time
pressures. It would have been difficult for us to go public before now
without sounding like we were taking advantage of Rutger's work, or
compromising the project's earlier need for confidentiality. There were also
some technical considerations; our NAND library has fewer layers, and our
YAFFS integration is subtly different.

Please let me know your thoughts. I can provide an interim documentation or
code drop if you'd like to see one. (The NAND layer is complete; YAFFS is
still being worked on, and RedBoot will be next.)

Regards,


Ross

-- 
Embedded Software Engineer, eCosCentric Limited.
Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge CB5 8UU, UK.
Registered in England no. 4422071.                  www.ecoscentric.com

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread
* Re: NAND & YAFFS
@ 2009-05-15  6:44 cetoni GmbH - Uwe Kindler
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 20+ messages in thread
From: cetoni GmbH - Uwe Kindler @ 2009-05-15  6:44 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: ecos-maintainers; +Cc: rutger

Hi,

I completely agree with Rutgers opinion about his development of eCos 
NAND support. 
(http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-maintainers/2009-05/msg00011.html).
I think the situation is very disappointing for him.

He invested a lot of work and time, he made his project public very 
early and he carefully designed the NAND flash IO and device layers. 
Because his work was public from the beginning, anyone could contribute, 
criticize or help. At the moment his implementation is the only one I 
know in detail and the only one that is public accessible. Furthermore 
its NAND framework is already used and known by other eCos community 
members. So at the moment I tend to say, Rutgers implementation is the 
current eCos NAND framework.

I think before we decide if some parts of eCosCentrics NAND 
implementation can be used, we should carefully check both 
implementations and discuss pros and cons. To do this we would need 
public access to the eCosCentric NAND implementation as soon as possible.

Furthermore I would like to know from eCosCentric in some short words, 
why their NAND implementation/design is better than Rutgers 
implementation. If this is not relizable within some days, we should 
stay with Rutgers implementation to get working NAND support as fast as 
possible.


Kind regards,

Dipl. Inf. (FH)
Uwe Kindler
Software Engineering

--

cetoni GmbH
Am Wiesenring 6
D-07554 Korbussen

Tel.: +49 (0) 36602 338 28
Fax:  +49 (0) 36602 338 11
uwe.kindler@cetoni.de
http://www.cetoni.de

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 20+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2009-06-03  6:55 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 20+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2009-05-13 13:59 NAND & YAFFS Ross Younger
2009-05-13 14:22 ` Simon Kallweit
2009-05-13 16:28   ` Sergei Gavrikov
2009-05-13 19:03 ` John Dallaway
2009-05-15 16:50   ` Ross Younger
2009-05-16 10:43     ` Andrew Lunn
2009-05-16 12:50       ` Ross Younger
2009-05-18  7:13     ` Andrew Lunn
2009-05-18 10:42       ` Rutger Hofman
2009-06-02 18:18       ` John Dallaway
2009-06-03  6:55         ` Andrew Lunn
2009-05-14 18:41 ` Rutger Hofman
2009-05-15  9:48   ` John Dallaway
2009-05-15  9:52   ` Andrew Lunn
2009-05-15 10:18     ` Simon Kallweit
2009-05-16  9:50       ` Andrew Lunn
2009-05-18  9:39         ` Paul Beskeen
2009-05-18  9:55           ` Simon Kallweit
2009-05-15 16:19     ` Paul Beskeen
2009-05-15  6:44 cetoni GmbH - Uwe Kindler

This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).