linux-kernel - Re: Old platforms: bring out your dead

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Message-ID: <CAK8P3a3C0mWHm+7GvtK92Nw0unZ8NTViXUVd_QysYgot8tuM7A@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Mon, 11 Jan 2021 13:32:57 +0100
From:   Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...nel.org>
To:     Russell King - ARM Linux admin <linux@...linux.org.uk>
Cc:     Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@...aro.org>,
        Fabian Vogt <fabian@...ter-vogt.de>,
        Baruch Siach <baruch@...s.co.il>,
        Geert Uytterhoeven <geert+renesas@...der.be>,
        Neil Armstrong <narmstrong@...libre.com>,
        Viresh Kumar <viresh.kumar@...aro.org>,
        Daniel Tang <dt.tangr@...il.com>,
        Jamie Iles <jamie@...ieiles.com>,
        Krzysztof Adamski <krzysztof.adamski@...ia.com>,
        Alexander Shiyan <shc_work@...l.ru>,
        Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>,
        Wei Xu <xuwei5@...ilicon.com>,
        Oleksij Rempel <o.rempel@...gutronix.de>,
        Alex Elder <elder@...aro.org>,
        Marc Gonzalez <marc.w.gonzalez@...e.fr>,
        Hans Ulli Kroll <ulli.kroll@...glemail.com>,
        Uwe Kleine-König 
        <u.kleine-koenig@...gutronix.de>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>,
        Vladimir Zapolskiy <vz@...ia.com>,
        Lubomir Rintel <lkundrak@...sk>,
        Koen Vandeputte <koen.vandeputte@...ntric.com>,
        Linux ARM <linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org>,
        Barry Song <song.bao.hua@...ilicon.com>,
        Thomas Bogendoerfer <tsbogend@...ha.franken.de>,
        Yoshinori Sato <ysato@...rs.sourceforge.jp>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Jonas Jensen <jonas.jensen@...il.com>,
        Hartley Sweeten <hsweeten@...ionengravers.com>,
        Mark Salter <msalter@...hat.com>,
        Shawn Guo <shawnguo@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: Old platforms: bring out your dead

On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 1:33 AM Russell King - ARM Linux admin
<linux@...linux.org.uk> wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 10:33:56PM +0100, Linus Walleij wrote:
> > On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 7:16 PM Fabian Vogt <fabian@...ter-vogt.de> wrote:
> > > Am Samstag, 9. Januar 2021, 23:20:48 CET schrieb Arnd Bergmann:
> > > (https://lore.kernel.org/linux-arm-kernel/20190805085847.25554-1-linus.walleij@linaro.org)
> > > was the biggest required change so far.
> >
> > What we're seeing here is actually a port that is:
> > - Finished
> > - Has a complete set of working drivers
> > - Supported
> > - Just works
> >
> > I.e. it doesn't see much patches because it is pretty much perfect.
> >
> > We are so unused to this situation that it can be mistaken for
> > the device being abandoned.
> >
> > I think it was Russell who first pointed out that this is actually
> > the case for a few machines.
>
> Yes indeed. I find it utterly rediculous that there is a perception
> that you constantly need to be patching a bit of software for it to
> not be seen as abandoned. If a piece of software works and does what
> it needs to do, why does it need to be continually patched? It makes
> no sense to me.

I don't know where you got the impression that this is what I
want to do. I used this as a first approximation because it reduced
the number of platforms to look at from 71 to under 20, just by
looking at what patches went into the kernel. I could further get the
number down to the 14 platforms listed in this email by knowing
some of the users of platforms that did not see a lot of updates but
are well supported, like highbank or dove.

We have already confirmed axxia, digicolor, kona and nspire
as platforms that we want to keep for now, and a new volunteer
to maintain axxia, and I did not get the impression that any of
the maintainers were overly stressed out by being sent an
email inquiry five years after the last contact. I would prefer
an occasional Tested-by tag for the cleanup patches that did make
it in (yes, I counted those as activity), but I understand that
everyone is busy and these are low-maintenance platforms.

> I have my xf86-video-armada which I use on the Dove Cubox and iMX6
> platforms. It does what I need it to, and I haven't updated the
> userspace on these platforms for a while. Therefore, I've no reason
> to patch that code, and no one has sent me patches. Does that mean
> it's abandoned? Absolutely not.

I listed the dove platform in the first table specifically because the
plan back in 2014 was to completely remove the platform once that
hardware is working with the modern mach-mvebu platform, and
I hoped that the transition had finished by now.

      Arnd