linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] drm/cma-helper: Add multi buffer support for cma fbdev

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Date:   Tue, 14 Feb 2017 21:09:51 +0100
From:   Daniel Vetter <daniel@...ll.ch>
To:     Daniel Stone <daniel@...ishbar.org>
Cc:     Maxime Ripard <maxime.ripard@...e-electrons.com>,
        Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@...el.com>,
        Stefan Christ <s.christ@...tec.de>,
        Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@...asonboard.com>,
        dri-devel <dri-devel@...ts.freedesktop.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] drm/cma-helper: Add multi buffer support for cma
 fbdev

On Mon, Feb 13, 2017 at 11:20:51AM +0000, Daniel Stone wrote:
> Hi Maxime,
> 
> On 13 February 2017 at 10:54, Maxime Ripard
> <maxime.ripard@...e-electrons.com> wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 12, 2017 at 02:28:11PM +0200, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> >> On Thursday 02 Feb 2017 11:31:56 Maxime Ripard wrote:
> >> > This patch add a config to support to create multi buffer for cma fbdev.
> >> > Such as double buffer and triple buffer.
> >> >
> >> > Cma fbdev is convient to add a legency fbdev. And still many Android
> >> > devices use fbdev now and at least double buffer is needed for these
> >> > Android devices, so that a buffer flip can be operated. It will need
> >> > some time for Android device vendors to abondon legency fbdev. So multi
> >> > buffer for fbdev is needed.
> >>
> >> How exactly do we expect Android to move away from fbdev if we add features to
> >> the fbdev compat layer ? I'd much rather make it clear to them that fbdev is a
> >> thing from the past and that they'd better migrate now.
> >
> > If your point is that merging this patch will slow down the Android
> > move away from fbdev, I disagree with that (obviously).
> >
> > I don't care at all about Android on my platform of choice, but don't
> > see how that merging this patch will change anything.
> >
> > Let's be honest, Android trees typically have thousands of patches on
> > top of mainline. Do you think a simple, 15 LoC, patch will make any
> > difference to vendors? If they want to stay on fbdev and have that
> > feature, they'll just merge this patch, done.
> 
> So, in that case, why not just let them do that? They'd already have
> to add patches to use this, surely; we don't have anything in mainline
> kernels which allows people to actually use this larger allocation.
> Apart from software mmap() and using panning to do flips, but I'm
> taking it as a given that people shipping Android on their devices
> aren't using software rendering.

I think we need to make a distinction between fbdev the subsystem in the
kernel, and fbdev the uabi:

- fbdev the subsystem is completely dead in upstream. I think we have full
  agreement on that.
- fbdev the uabi isn't, and if we can get more users from fbdev based
  drivers to kms/atomic drivers by adding fairly simple stuff like this,
  I'm all for it.

Which means: Yes, I fully plan to merge this, it makes sense. It even
_helps_ by making fbdev-the-subsystem even deader. Making live hard for
out-of-tree folks or folks with shit userspace doesn't make sense, at
least if the only benefit for us is that we'll feel pure about our
intentions :-)

Cheers, Daniel
-- 
Daniel Vetter
Software Engineer, Intel Corporation
http://blog.ffwll.ch