[ Thanks to Petros Koutoupis for
this link. ]
“”Apparently there had been some problems with the
patch being merged into the Linux kernel for a number of reasons.
(1) Montavista was attempting to patent some of the concepts and
algorithms used in the file system (in 2004) and (2) even after the
dropped the idea of patenting their code, there was some discussion
on the redundancy of having yet another file system implemented
into the Linux kernel (in 2009). What that means, is that the Linux
kernel already has two commonly used RAM file systems and a large
number of other file systems. So why was there a need to write
another one? Why couldn’t Montavista patch already existing code?
(3) It is also not a full featured file system in that it does not
support symbolic links.“I agree with this logic. Please do not misunderstand me.
Montavista is a very respectable company that has done an excellent
job in supporting embedded Linux. I am also glad to see them
contribute to the kernel and in turn the community. But truth be
told, tmpfs was build on top of the ramfs code. Why couldn’t pramfs
follow the same course of development. The GPL makes it easy to not
have to re-invent the wheel.”