linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] Staging/IIO driver patches for 4.9-rc1

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Date:   Wed, 5 Oct 2016 22:17:24 +0200
From:   Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:     Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
Cc:     Linux Driver Project <devel@...uxdriverproject.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] Staging/IIO driver patches for 4.9-rc1

On Wed, Oct 05, 2016 at 09:32:01AM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 5, 2016 at 12:22 AM, Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org> wrote:
> >
> > Here is the big staging and IIO driver pull request for 4.9-rc1.
> >
> > There are a lot of patches in here, the majority due to the
> > drivers/staging/greybus/ subsystem being merged in with full development
> > history that went back a few years, in order to preserve the work that
> > those developers did over time.  This was done the same way that btrfs
> > was merged into the tree, so all should be ok there.
> 
> So I certainly have nothing against merging the development history
> this way - as you say we've done this before.
> 
> However, before I pull this, I do want to understand why pulling it
> makes sense in the first place.
> 
> I realize that people (very much including you personally) have spent
> lots of effort on greybus, but excuse my somewhat indelicate question:
> is there any *point* to merging greybus support?
> 
> Is anything ever going to use it? With project Ara being dead, where
> else would you find users? Please fill me in on details - at the very
> least, even if there realyl *are* good reasons to merge it, that's the
> kind of information that should go into the pull request and into the
> merge message.

Fair enough.  Right now there is a phone from Motorola shipping with
this code (a slightly older version, but the same tree), so even though
Ara is not alive in the same form, the functionality is happening.  We
are working with the developers of that phone to merge the newer stuff
in with their fork so they can use the upstream version in future
versions of their phone product line.

Toshiba has at least one chip shipping in their catalog that needs/uses
this protocol over a Unipro link, and rumor has it that there might be
more in the future.

There are also other users of the greybus protocols, there is a talk
next week at ELC that shows how it is being used across a network
connection to control a device, and previous ELC talks have showed the
protocol stack being used over USB to drive embedded Linux boards.  I've
also talked to some people who are starting to work to add a host
controller driver to control arduinos as the greybus PHY protocols are
very useful to control a serial/i2c/spio/whatever device across a random
physical link, as it is a way to have a self-describing device be
attached to a host without needing manual configuration.

So yes, people are using it, and there is still the chance that it will
show up in a phone/laptop/tablet/whatever from Google in the future as
well, the tech isn't dead, even if the original large phone project
happens to be.

Should I respin the merge request with the above information in it?

thanks,

greg k-h