Date:   Fri, 19 Mar 2021 14:59:47 +0200
From:   Leon Romanovsky <leon@...nel.org>
To:     "Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult" <info@...ux.net>
Cc:     Alex Williamson <alex.williamson@...hat.com>,
        Amey Narkhede <ameynarkhede03@...il.com>,
        raphael.norwitz@...anix.com, linux-pci@...r.kernel.org,
        bhelgaas@...gle.com, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        alay.shah@...anix.com, suresh.gumpula@...anix.com,
        shyam.rajendran@...anix.com, felipe@...anix.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/4] PCI/sysfs: Allow userspace to query and set device
 reset mechanism

On Thu, Mar 18, 2021 at 07:34:56PM +0100, Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult wrote:
> On 18.03.21 18:22, Leon Romanovsky wrote:
> 
> > Which email client do you use?
> > Your responses are grouped as one huge block without any chance to respond
> > to you on specific point or answer to your question.
> 
> I'm reading this thread in Tbird, and threading / quoting all looks
> nice.

I'm not talking about threading or quoting but about response itself.
See it here https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20210318103935.2ec32302@omen.home.shazbot.org/
Alex's response is one big chunk without any separations to paragraphs.

> 
> > I see your flow and understand your position, but will repeat my
> > position. We need to make sure that vendors will have incentive to
> > supply quirks.
> 
> I really doubt we can influence that by any technical decision here in
> the kernel.

There are subsystems that succeeded to do it, for example netdev, RDMA e.t.c.

> 
> > And regarding vendors, see Amey response below about his touchpad troubles.
> > The cheap electronics vendors don't care about their users.
> 
> IMHO, the expensive ones don't care either.
> 
> Does eg. Dell publish board schematics ? Do they even publish exact part
> lists (exact chipsets) along with their brochures, so customers can
> check wether their HW is supported, before buying and trying out ?

They do it because they are allowed to do it and not because they
explicitly want to annoyance their customers. 

> 
> Doesn't seem so. I've personally seen a lot cases where some supposedly
> supported HW turned out to be some completely different and unsupported
> HW that's sold under exactly the same product ID. One of many reasons
> for not giving them a single penny anymore.
> 
> IMHO, there're only very few changes of convincing some HW vendor for
> doing a better job on driver side:
> 
> a) product is targeted for a niche that can't live without Linux
>    (eg. embedded)
> b) it's really *dangerous* for your market share if anything doesn't
>    work properly on Linux (eg. certan server machines)
> c) somebody *really* big (like Google) is gun-pointing at some supplier,
>    who's got a lot to loose
> d) a *massive* worldwide shitstorm against the vendor
> 
> [ And often, even a combination of them isn't enough. Did you know that
>   even Google doesn't get all specs necessary to replace away the ugly
>   FSP blob ? (it's the same w/ AMD, but meanwhile I'm pissed enought to
>   reverse engineer their AGESA blob). ]

I don't know about this specific Google case, but from my previous experience.
The reasons why vendor says no to Google are usually due to licensing and legal
issues and not open source vs. proprietary.

> 
> You see, what we do here in the kernel has no practical influence on
> those hw vendors.

I see it differently, but it doesn't matter. This is too theoretical
discussion to my taste.

> 
> 
> --mtx
> 
> -- 
> ---
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> ---
> Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult
> Free software and Linux embedded engineering
> info@...ux.net -- +49-151-27565287

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