linux-kernel - Re: [GIT PULL] ARM: SoC/genpd driver updates for v6.6

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [thread-next>] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Date:   Tue, 29 Aug 2023 17:18:59 -0700
From:   Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>
To:     Ulf Hansson <ulf.hansson@...aro.org>
Cc:     linux-pm@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>, Olof Johansson <olof@...om.net>,
        soc@...nel.org, linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org
Subject: Re: [GIT PULL] ARM: SoC/genpd driver updates for v6.6

On Tue, 29 Aug 2023 at 14:34, Ulf Hansson <ulf.hansson@...aro.org> wrote:
>
> Here's a pull-request that introduces the genpd provider subsystem.

I was starting to pull this, and then tried to figure out what the
heck "genpd" is.

Absolutely nothing in the pull request explains what it might be.

Even after actually pulling it, I couldn't really find anything useful.

The closest seems to be the MAINTAINERS file entry that says "GENERIC
PM DOMAIN PROVIDERS", which doesn't actually clarify anything.

Ok, so we have a Kconfig option for PM_GENERIC_DOMAINS, so I looked at
that. It has no help-text, as it is entirely an internal generated
one.

End result: I decided that without any kind of explanation at all,
"genpd" is a completely useless name, and that I don't want to
randomly add a new directory with zero explanation for what the heck
it is.

So I ended up unpulling it, because if I had to google what it is, I
wasn't going to pull it.

Can we please agree that

 (a) five random letters in a row does not documentation make

 (b) if we have a new subsystem, it should damn well have some
explanation for it

And even if you send me a new pull request with an actual explanation
for the term, do we really have to use such a horribly nasty name?

This is not some kind of industry standard shorthand.

Yes, google does find the term "genpd" having been used for a few
years in Linux SoC-land, but are we really so short on diskspace that
we can't use more descriptive names?

Now I look at this disaster area with no documentation, and realize
that it ends up also being part of Arnd's series of SoC pulls.

What a horrible thing this is. Please don't use random letter
combinations that have absolutely no meaning to anybody else, and that
aren't even explained.

               Linus