Date:	Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:56:20 +0100
From:	Kay Sievers <kay.sievers@...e.de>
To:	"Rafael J. Wysocki" <rjw@...k.pl>
Cc:	LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
	Paul Mundt <lethal@...ux-sh.org>, Greg KH <gregkh@...e.de>,
	Linux PM mailing list <linux-pm@...ts.linux-foundation.org>,
	Russell King <linux@....linux.org.uk>,
	Magnus Damm <magnus.damm@...il.com>, linux-sh@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 9/10] sh: Use struct syscore_ops instead of sysdev
 class and sysdev

On Tue, 2011-03-22 at 23:42 +0100, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> On Tuesday, March 22, 2011, Kay Sievers wrote:
> > On Tue, 2011-03-22 at 23:05 +0100, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, March 22, 2011, Kay Sievers wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 2011-03-22 at 22:00 +0100, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > > > On Tuesday, March 22, 2011, Kay Sievers wrote:
> > > > > > On Tue, 2011-03-22 at 21:30 +0100, Rafael J. Wysocki wrote:
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > Perhaps there's a more straightforward way to make some files show up in
> > > > > > > sysfs on a specific path than defininig an otherwise useless bus type and
> > > > > > > device object?
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > That's absolutely not the point. Please don't get yourself into that
> > > > > > thinking. If people want to "export stuff to userspace", they must not
> > > > > > invent new things. We need to get rid of the silly special cases.
> > > > > 
> > > > > Why exactly?  Do they actually hurt anyone and if so then how?
> > > > 
> > > > Sure, "devices" are devices, and devices have well-defines set of
> > > > properties, not some magic directory, people can mess around with the
> > > > way they like.
> > > 
> > > So it looks like the the problem is that the exported attributes happen to
> > > be under /sys/devices/.  Would it still be a problem if they were somewhere
> > > else?
> > 
> > We are not going to invent another location for any devices. They need
> > to stay in /devices if they are devices. And all devices need to be
> > "struct device".
> 
> _They_ _are_ _not_ _devices_.

Ah, I see. Then they should not ever have been created as a sysdev in
the first place. I thought you did only talk about stuff that needs
pm_ops. If they don't do anything like a device, they need to go
somewhere else, yes.

> Please take clocksource as an example.  It needs to export two attributes,
> available_clocksource and current_clocksource, which are _useful_ user space
> interfaces.  Why the heck are you trying to convince me it's a good idea to
> create a special bus type and struct device _specifically_ for exporting them?!
> 
> Moreover, is there anything device-alike in those two attributes?  I don't
> really think so.
> 
> So please stop arguing this way, because it simply isn't going to fly and
> people will always say a big fat "no" to such ideas, for a good reason.

I never expected anything like that to use a sysdev. I'm not tryin gto
convince you about anything, I'm just surprised what people do, well I'm
not after all the years. :)

> > > > > > Userspace is not meant to learn subsystem specific rules for every new
> > > > > > thing.
> > > > > 
> > > > > That depends a good deal of who's writing the user space in question.  If
> > > > > that's the same person who's working on the particular part of the kernel,
> > > > > I don't see a big problem.
> > > > 
> > > > Not for "devices". There are rules for devices, which are defined by the
> > > > driver core, and the sysdev stuff needs to go, because it does not fit
> > > > into that model.
> > > 
> > > OK, I understand that.
> > > 
> > > Now, there's stuff that doesn't really match the "device" model.  Where is
> > > the right place to export that?  Perhaps we should add something like
> > > /sys/platform/ (in analogy with /sys/firmware/)?
> > 
> > No, add a subsystem (bus_type) for any of them, and register them. There
> > is no such thing as "devices which do not fit the device model", they
> > are all fine there. Please stop optimizing single bytes and creating a
> > mess in /sys. Every device is a "struct device".
> 
> Again.  Those things are _not_ devices.  Am I not clear enough?

No that wasn't clear. They need to leave the driver core then, if they
are not devices. :)

> > Think of "struct bus_type" as "struct subsystem", we will rename that
> > when we are ready. It is just a group of devices which are of the same
> > type, it has nothing to do with a bus in the sense of hardware.
> > 
> > We need unified exports of _all devices to userspace, not custom layouts
> > in /sys.
> > 
> > There's is a pretty much outdated Documentation/sysfs-rules.txt, wich
> > covers part of the history and the plans.
> 
> You seem to be thinking that anything exported through sysfs needs to be
> device, which I don't think is event approximately correct (what about
> /sys/firmware/ or /sys/kernel/ or /sys/fs/ , for a few examples?).

All fine. Again, I'm only talking about "devices", which is class/,
block/, bus/, dev/, devices/ in /sys.

> Think this way: it is useful (and IMHO correct) to export some things to
> user space that without necessarily regarding them as "devices", physical
> or not.  Some of them _happen_ to be exported through sysdevs, but that
> doesn't really mean the _are_ devices.  They are simply _software_ interfaces
> to things that have no device representation and don't _need_ one.

Fine, they need to leave the driver core stuff alone, and not pretend to
be a device.

> > > > > > There is _one_ way to export device attributes, and that is
> > > > > > "struct device" today.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > If that's to expensive for anybody, just don't use sysfs. It's the rule
> > > > > > we have today. :)
> > > > > 
> > > > > Oh, good to know.  It's changed a bit since I last heard.  Never mind.
> > > > 
> > > > Oh, don't get me wrong, this is all is about "devices" not any other
> > > > controls.
> > > >
> > > > > Still, I won't let you change the things in /sys/power to struct devices,
> > > > > sorry about that. ;-)
> > > > 
> > > > Fine as long as they are power specific things, and not "devices". You
> > > > don't have sysdevs there, right? :)
> > > 
> > > No, I don't.
> > 
> > Then all is fine. All other stuff is more like /proc, and can never be
> > really unified.
> 
> YES!  And _that_'s precisely what I'm (and Paul is) talking about.

Good.

> > All we care about is devices, which have common methods
> > for userspace to trigger and consume, and need to be unified. Power
> > specific control files seems all fine in its kobject use.
> 
> I understand that, really.
> 
> > > > > And I wonder how are you going to deal with clocksource exporting things
> > > > > via the sysdev interface right now.  I'd simply create two directories and
> > > > > put the two files into them and be done with that, but I guess that
> > > > > wouldn't fit into the model somehow, right?
> > > > 
> > > > Nope, register a bus_type, and use struct device for all of them, Parent
> > > > them to /sys/devices/system/ if they should keep their location and
> > > > layout.
> > > 
> > > Well, I'll be watching what happens to the patch trying to do that, but I'm
> > > not going to bet anything on its success. ;-)
> > 
> > It should be pretty straight-forward. We will need to do that for CPUs I
> > guess, because the interface is kinda commonly used.
> 
> No.  CPUs are _very_ special.

Not in the view of the driver core or the associated user space
interfaces. They are just like any other device.

> > > > > > > > That way userspace can properly enumerate them in a flat list
> > > > > > > > in /sys/bus/<bus_type name>/devices/*, and gets proper events on module
> > > > > > > > load and during system coldplug, and can hook into the usual hotplug
> > > > > > > > pathes to set/get these values instead of crawling magicly defined and
> > > > > > > > decoupled locations in /sys which can not express proper hierarchy,
> > > > > > > > classicication, or anything else that all other devices can just do.
> > > > > > > 
> > > > > > > There's no hotplug involved or anything remotely like that AFAICS.
> > > > > > > There are simply static files as I said above, they are created
> > > > > > > early during system initialization and simply stay there.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > That's not the point. It's about a single way to retrieve information
> > > > > > about devices, extendability, and coldplug during bootup, where existing
> > > > > > devices need to be handled only after userspace is up.
> > > > > 
> > > > > I'd say the case at hand has nothing to do with that.
> > > > 
> > > > It has. As for CPUs. We can not do proper CPU-dependent module
> > > > autoloading, because the events happen before userspace runs, and
> > > > clodplug can not see the broken sysdevs, because they have no events to
> > > > re-trigger, like all others have.
> > > 
> > > Well, as I said, would it be OK if the things in question happened to be
> > > located somewhere outside of /sys/devices/ ?
> > 
> > No, no device directory can be outside of /sys/devices.
> 
> Sorry, I'm repeating that for the last time.  I'm not talking about devices.
> I'm talking about _totally_ _random_ _stuff_ which is "like /proc, and can
> never be really unified" (your own words) which _happens_ to be exported
> through the sysdev interface, because that happend to be _easy_ at one point.
> Can we agree on that at least?

Sure, they should leave the driver core alone, and should never been a
sysdev or any other device in the first place. We should not create
anything for them.

Kay

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