[ANNOUNCE] erofs-utils: release 1.0 and package inclusion requests

[Gao Xiang]

Hi folks,

I'm here to announce erofs-utils 1.0, which is userspace utilities of
EROFS file system and available at,

git://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/xiang/erofs-utils.git tags/v1.0

 * first release with the following new features:
   - (mkfs.erofs) uncompressed file support;
   - (mkfs.erofs) uncompressed tail-end packing inline data support;
   - (mkfs.erofs) lz4 / lz4HC compressed file support;
   - (mkfs.erofs) special file support;
   - (mkfs.erofs) inline / shared xattrs support;
   - (mkfs.erofs) Posix ACL support;

It's also a package inclusion request (I've noticed a openSUSE package)
and please kindly read README first before starting.

As related materials mentioned [1] [2], the goal of EROFS is to save
extra storage space with guaranteed end-to-end performance for read-only
files, which has better performance via fixed-sized output compression
and inplace decompression over all other compression filesystems
based on fixed-sized input compression. It even has better performance
in a large compression ratio range compared with generic uncompressed
filesystems with proper CPU-storage combinations.

EROFS has been widely deployed to all HUAWEI smartphones for Android
system partitions from EMUI 9.1. In other words, if you buy any new
HUAWEI smartphones this year or upgrade your old phones with recent
EMUI 9.1+ releases, you will surely get an EROFS commercial copy.
EROFS is stable enough proven by 200-million+ devices [3] on the market.
In conclusion, it's highly recommended to try it out now with latest
code for all similar scenarios.

What we are recently working on are
 - demonstrate a new XZ algorithm in order to prepare for high CR
   compression, which is the next step of the generic approach;
 - prepare for releasing erofs-utils 1.0;

The roadmap of EROFS was discussed in China Linux Storage and File
System Workshop 2019 [4] shown as the presentation [5].
And it's still an open discussion as well since we are quite happy
to hear, implement and enhance any useful feature requests from
communities with proper priority and provide more complete and
competitive solution to all interested users and enrich related
ecosystem.

In the end, feel free to feedback any comments, questions, bugs,
suggestions, etc. to us for better improvements and welcome to join
us as well :-)
 linux-erofs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Best regards and have a great day,
Gao Xiang

[1] https://kccncosschn19eng.sched.com/event/Nru2/erofs-an-introduction-and-our-smartphone-practice-xiang-gao-huawei
[2] https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc19/presentation/gao
[3] https://www.huaweicentral.com/huawei-exceeds-200-million-smartphone-shipment-64-days-ahead-compared-to-2018/
[4] Here are some past year annual report:
    https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/china-linux-storage-and-file-system-clsf-workshop-2014-v2
    https://blogs.oracle.com/linux/china-linux-storage-and-file-system-clsf-workshop-2015-report-v2
[5] https://github.com/hsiangkao/erofs-roadmap/raw/master/erofs-roadmap.pdf