“Axis Communications announced today the first open source code
for the Journaled Flash File System (JFFS), which allows Linux
devices to store information on Flash-ROM’s. This production
quality filesystem, developed by Axis, is ideally suited for
designing embedded systems without hard drives, such as emerging
network and mobile devices, because it provides crash-safe memory
and supports fast system boot-up. The source code is freely
available to the open source community, released under the GNU
General Public License (GPL) on the Axis Developer Web site (
http://developer.axis.com ).”
“Red Hat is very excited about Axis’ development of the JFFS. We
believe that it will bring great value to the embedded
environment,” said Paul Beskeen, director of engineering, Red Hat,
Inc. “As we enter into next-generation computing, the power of open
source will drive the development of Internet appliances and
embedded devices. Developers can take advantage of these
advancements, through Red Hat’s cross-platform open-source
development IDE, for creating applications that are portable across
a wide range of emerging computing devices.”
“JFFS is a log-structured filesystem, designed to protect
data even after a power failure or system crash. Devices can also
be designed to take advantage of “instant on” capability and faster
performance because JFFS doesn’t require a conventional filesystem
check during boot up or accessing data physically from a hard
drive. As an additional feature, JFFS extends the life of
Flash-ROM’s because of wear leveling, a technique that spreads
usage across the entire Flash area.”