Re: Issues with FFS vs UFS name in applications and documentation

[Alan Barrett <apb%cequrux.com@localhost>]

On Tue, 31 Mar 2009, Luke Mewburn wrote:
> 1.  In general, there is inconsistenct of "UFS" and "FFS",
>     including version variations such as "UFS1" versus "FFSv1",
>     within documentation, command names, command output, (etc.)

Several years ago, I used to think that "UFS" meant "any file system
with unix file system semantics" (any file system that provides all
the features required by the API, such as hard links, symlinks, inode
numbers, various permissions and timestamps, the ability to perform
various atomic operations) and that FFS was an implementation of such a
file system.  Several years ago, I believe that NetBSD was consistent in
its use of the terms UFS and FFS, although the meanings were not clearly
documented.

Around the time that NetBSD imported softdep, we started using the terms
UFS and FFS inconsistently.  I'd certainly like things to be consistent
again, even if it means that my earlier understanding was wrong.  Could
we start with a definition of exactly what UFS means?

--apb (Alan Barrett)