linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] Remove support for score architecture

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Message-ID: <5224CB12.50206@roeck-us.net>
Date:	Mon, 02 Sep 2013 10:29:54 -0700
From:	Guenter Roeck <linux@...ck-us.net>
To:	Lennox Wu <lennox.wu@...il.com>
CC:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
	Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
	Jiang Liu <jiang.liu@...wei.com>,
	Stephen Rothwell <sfr@...b.auug.org.au>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
	"David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
	Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
	Liqin Chen <liqin299@...il.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Remove support for score architecture

On 09/02/2013 08:18 AM, Lennox Wu wrote:
> Before we start the development of the S+core, Sunplus had licensed
> ARM and MIPS. We develop S+core for other reason such as the price.
> Some products on the web of Sunplus adopt S+core , for example
> the SPV7050.(http://w3.sunplus.com/products/spv7050.asp) These products
> could still be bought from the market. Some high-end products adopt
> ARM or MIPS. So, there is no conflict for a company adopts multiple
> architectures.
>
> As I said, we recognize that we rarely update because of the limited
> applications and rare requests from customers. Maybe we don’t
> understand the culture enough; we think that it is unnecessary if we
> have no new bugs or new functions, the thought seems wrong. We can
> commit some patches in the near future.
>

The point is not about submitting patches, it is about maintaining the code.
Even if you don't add functionality, one would expect that you ensure that
new kernel versions compile and run on your hardware.

Since January 2012, 68 patches have been applied to arch/score, pretty
much all of them addressing kernel API changes or global cleanup.
Only two of them got an Ack by one of the score maintainers.
This strongly suggests that you don't keep track of what is going on,
and at the very least raises the question if you do compile and test
new kernel versions on a regular basis. Even if you do, no one knows
about it, because ....

As part of this process, I would expect the architecture maintainer to
accept incoming patches, test the same, and send pull requests to Linus.
The last time this happened was early 2011; since then all score patches
were sent to Linus through Andrew and a few other maintainers.
Actually, I don't see many signoffs from a score maintainer at all,
even from the very beginning.

As pointed out, the MAINTAINERS entry for score points to a
non-existing domain, as does the e-mail address of one of the
maintainers.

I would not call that "maintained".

Guenter

> Best,
> Lennox
>
> 2013/9/2 Guenter Roeck <linux@...ck-us.net>:
>> On 09/01/2013 09:13 PM, Lennox Wu wrote:
>>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> Indeed, Sunplus S+core is not a popular architecture and there is no
>>> standalone to be sold so you should not find related news on the
>>> Internet.  However, the s+core is adopted by our SoCs and these SoCs
>>> are indeed adopted by some companies, we hope the architecture can be
>>> reserved to provide the more and more powerful Linux for our
>>> customers. It is true that we rarely update the code because that we
>>> are rarely requested to add new functions and to correct bugs by our
>>> customers, and it is also because we have no new product to release.
>>> In the near future, we will release some patches for the existed
>>> S+core architecture.
>>>
>>
>> Key question is not if the platform is popular, but if it is maintained.
>> The commit log over the last two years strongly suggests that this is
>> not the case. I suspect that the code is far from compilable at this point,
>> much less executable. Unfortunately this is hard to verify, as a pre-built
>> or even buildable toolchain is not easily available.
>>
>>  From a company perspective, you might want to decide if you want to put
>> resources into this architecture to keep it alive, or focus on more recent
>> chips and architectures. Information available on the internet suggests
>> that Suncore's more recent chips are based on ARM. Given that, it appears
>> somewhat unlikely that resources for maintaining S+core will be made
>> available. Guess we'll see if the situation changes.
>>
>> Guenter
>>
>>
>>> 2013/8/31 Guenter Roeck <linux@...ck-us.net>:
>>>>
>>>> The web site associated with the score architecture in MAINTAINERS
>>>> is non-functional and available for sale. The last Ack from one
>>>> of the maintainers was in December 2012. The main maintainer's last
>>>> commit was in 2011. The last maintainer pull request was early 2011.
>>>>
>>>> Cc: Lennox Wu <lennox.wu@...il.com>
>>>> Cc: Chen Liqin <liqin.chen@...plusct.com>
>>>> Signed-off-by: Guenter Roeck <linux@...ck-us.net>
>>>> ---
>>>> More housekeeping.
>>>>
>>>> Maybe this removal request is a bit early, but architecture support seems
>>>> to have vanished entirely. At the very least this puts interested parties
>>>> (if there are any) on notice.
>>>>
>>
>
>

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