netdev - Re: [PATCH v2 5/5] isdn: move capi drivers to staging

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Date:   Sun, 9 Jan 2022 12:29:17 +0100
From:   Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>
To:     Andreas Eversberg <andreas@...rsberg.eu>
Cc:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Networking <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        Karsten Keil <isdn@...ux-pingi.de>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 5/5] isdn: move capi drivers to staging

On Sun, Jan 9, 2022 at 10:42 AM Andreas Eversberg <andreas@...rsberg.eu> wrote:
>
> Hi Arnd,
>
> first of all I want to introduce myself:
>
> I developed some drivers for the mISDN stack, like HFC-4S/8S/E1 cards and audio processing. I wrote LCR to make use of the mISDN stack and process ISDN voice calls. Later I worked on several GSM related Osmocom projects. My current effort is to preserve classic telecommunication technology[1].
>
> In my opinion, mISDN should stay in kernel. Connecting existing hardware PBX and terminal equipment (phones) requires BRI/PRI interfaces, which are provided by mISDN. Also telcos offer analog or BRI ports on their integrated access devices. LCR is not in development anymore, because the architecture is based on classic telephony, so that VoIP (SIP) supports basic speech calls with many limitations only. I actually don't like LCR it anymore. As a replacement for LCR, I wrote two gateway applications[2] that can interconnect SIP and mISDN endpoints without having something like a PBX. I know of some people still using mISDN/LCR (or the new gateway applications) to connect their equipment to a SIP provider. So there is still a use case.
>
> I have not been working on / compiling mISDN kernel drivers for a long time. If there is work to be done, let me know and I will look at it.

Hi Andreas,

There is of course no problem keeping it in the tree longer if it
still has users, but your
description above does not answer the two main questions:

- how likely are the remaining mISDN users to upgrade to a future
kernel using the
  provided mISDN stack, rather than remaining on the latest currently
working kernel
  or one of the out-of-tree copies of the driver [1][2].

- As Karsten Keil is no longer actively providing patches for mISDN
(his last mainline
  commit is from 2015, the last commit to [1] was in April 2020), is
there any other
  person who can take over as maintainer and actively work on ensuring that the
  drivers continue to work?

          Arnd

[1] https://github.com/ISDN4Linux/mISDN
[2] https://github.com/bbaranoff/mISDN