netdev - Re: [resend/standalone PATCH v4] Add auxiliary bus support

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Date:   Fri, 18 Dec 2020 13:46:03 +0000
From:   Lee Jones <lee.jones@...aro.org>
To:     Mark Brown <broonie@...nel.org>
Cc:     Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Alexandre Belloni <alexandre.belloni@...tlin.com>,
        Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@...el.com>,
        Pierre-Louis Bossart <pierre-louis.bossart@...ux.intel.com>,
        alsa-devel@...a-project.org, Kiran Patil <kiran.patil@...el.com>,
        linux-rdma <linux-rdma@...r.kernel.org>,
        Shiraz Saleem <shiraz.saleem@...el.com>,
        Martin Habets <mhabets@...arflare.com>,
        Liam Girdwood <lgirdwood@...il.com>,
        Ranjani Sridharan <ranjani.sridharan@...ux.intel.com>,
        Fred Oh <fred.oh@...ux.intel.com>,
        Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@...dia.com>,
        Dave Ertman <david.m.ertman@...el.com>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,
        Netdev <netdev@...r.kernel.org>,
        Leon Romanovsky <leonro@...dia.com>,
        David Miller <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Parav Pandit <parav@...lanox.com>
Subject: Re: [resend/standalone PATCH v4] Add auxiliary bus support

On Fri, 18 Dec 2020, Mark Brown wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 18, 2020 at 08:10:51AM +0100, Greg KH wrote:
> > On Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 10:19:37PM +0100, Alexandre Belloni wrote:
> 
> > > There is something I don't get from the documentation and it is what is
> > > this introducing that couldn't already be done using platform drivers
> > > and platform devices?
> 
> > Because platform drivers and devices should ONLY be for actual platform
> > devices.  Do NOT use that interface to fake up a non-platform device
> > (i.e. something that is NOT connected to a cpu through a memory-mapped
> > or direct-firmware interface).
> 
> > Do not abuse the platform code anymore than it currently is, it's bad
> > enough what has been done to it over time, let's not make it any worse.
> 
> I am not clear on why you're giving direct-firmware devices (which I
> assume means things like ARM SCMI where we're talking directly to some
> firmware?) a pass here but not for example a GPIO controlled devices.
> If this is mainly about improving abstractions it seems like the
> boundary here isn't great.  Or perhaps I'm just missing what
> direct-firmware is supposed to mean?
> 
> In any case, to be clear part of what you're saying here is that all
> I2C and SPI MFDs should be rewritten to use this new bus - I've just
> copied Lee in again since he keeps getting missed from these threads.
> As previously discussed this will need the auxilliary bus extending to
> support at least interrupts and possibly also general resources.

Thanks Mark.

Not entirely sure why this needed an entirely new subsystem to handle
non-MMIO Multi-Functional Devices (MFD).  Or why I was not approached
by any of the developers during the process.

Having 2 entirely separate subsystems where MFDs can now be registered
sounds confusing and convoluted at best.  Why not simply extend actual
MFD to be capable of registering non-pure platform devices via other
means?  By doing so you keep things bound to a central location
resulting in less chance of misuse.

I turn away MFD implementation abuses all the time.  Seeing as the 2
subsystems are totally disjoint, this just unwittingly opened up
another back-channel opportunity for those abuses to make it into the
mainline kernel.

-- 
Lee Jones [李琼斯]
Senior Technical Lead - Developer Services
Linaro.org │ Open source software for Arm SoCs
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