netdev - Re: [PATCH RFC net-next 8/8] net: phylink: allow PCS to be removed

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Date:   Tue, 23 Nov 2021 19:50:17 +0000
From:   "Russell King (Oracle)" <linux@...linux.org.uk>
To:     Vladimir Oltean <olteanv@...il.com>
Cc:     Sean Anderson <sean.anderson@...o.com>,
        Chris Snook <chris.snook@...il.com>,
        Felix Fietkau <nbd@....name>,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>,
        John Crispin <john@...ozen.org>,
        Mark Lee <Mark-MC.Lee@...iatek.com>,
        Matthias Brugger <matthias.bgg@...il.com>,
        Michal Simek <michal.simek@...inx.com>,
        Radhey Shyam Pandey <radhey.shyam.pandey@...inx.com>,
        Sean Wang <sean.wang@...iatek.com>,
        Vivien Didelot <vivien.didelot@...il.com>,
        Andrew Lunn <andrew@...n.ch>,
        "David S. Miller" <davem@...emloft.net>,
        Heiner Kallweit <hkallweit1@...il.com>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@...nel.org>,
        linux-arm-kernel@...ts.infradead.org,
        linux-mediatek@...ts.infradead.org, netdev@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC net-next 8/8] net: phylink: allow PCS to be removed

On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 09:30:17PM +0200, Vladimir Oltean wrote:
> Sorry if you feel like I am asking too many questions. I just want to
> understand what I'm being asked to review here :)
> 
> So going back to the initial question. What use case do these patches
> help to make some progress with?

If we exclude patch 8, this series:

1) identifies all those drivers that are reliant on the legacy behaviour
   of phylink, which can then be targetted for modernisation - some of
   which may be trivial to do. ag71xx and axienet have turned out to be
   two drivers that can be trivially converted.

2) hopefully stops the legacy use finding its way into new drivers by
   making it easier to spot in review, but hopefully people will realise
   that setting the legacy flag in their driver to use the old hooks is
   something they probably want to avoid.

3) gives consistent phylink behaviour to modern drivers which may or
   may not decide to register a PCS with phylink.

(3) is probably the most important point for any driver that registers
a PCS conditionally. Right now, any driver that does this gets a
slightly different behaviour from phylink as detailed in patch 7.

I would like to remove the legacy code and old .mac_pcs_get_state and
.mac_an_restart callbacks some day...

-- 
RMK's Patch system: https://www.armlinux.org.uk/developer/patches/
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