On 2/20/2014 12:14 AM, Grant Likely wrote: > On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 4:58 AM, Frank Rowand <frowand.list@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> On 2/19/2014 1:15 PM, Grant Likely wrote: >>> On Wed, Feb 19, 2014 at 8:16 PM, Frank Rowand <frowand.list@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>>> On 2/19/2014 1:08 AM, Sascha Hauer wrote: >>>>> On Tue, Feb 18, 2014 at 02:44:15PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote: >>>>>> I'm not in favor of separating the device tree information from the kernel. >>>>>> >>>>>> If we switch, then whatever synchronization issues other projects >>>>>> are having now with synching with the device tree info from the kernel will >>>>>> just then become the problem of the kernel developers, who will then >>>>>> have to sync with the device tree info from another repository. If the >>>>>> sync issues can't be solved now for them, why or how would it be solved >>>>>> post-separation for us? (It sounds like a zero-sum game of pain transfer >>>>>> to me.) >>>>>> >>>>>> I'm relatively unfamiliar with the arguments. Can someone provide >>>>>> a brief list of reasons this is needed, and how the inconvenience to Linux >>>>>> kernel developers will be minimized, should it proceed? >>>>> >>>> >>>> >>>>> One of the reasons for doing devicetrees is to separate the hardware >>>>> description from the code so that: >>>>> - Other OSes (and bootloaders) can use the same description to start on >>>>> a given hardware >>>>> - A generic Kernel can be started on any hardware >>>>> - A hardware describes itself, makes itself more introspecitve so we can >>>>> go away from very specialized kernels >>>> >>>> Tim knows this ^^^^. He was asking for the arguments for moving dts files >>>> out of the linux kernel source tree. >>> >>> We've made the decision that devicetree bindings need to be treated as >>> ABI, but as long as the .dts files live in the kernel there will >>> always be the temptation to just tweak things in lock-step and nobody >>> will notice. Splitting the files out gives that extra push to think >>> about whether changes to a binding will backwards compatible with a >>> tree that doesn't have those changes because the chances are a lot >>> higher that someone will hit that combination. >>> >>> The other argument is shared source between >>> BSD/U-Boot/Barebox/Linux/etc. Until we have a separate .dts repo there >>> is no good way to share the database of hardware descriptions. >> >> We could provide an easy export (see below). What do you think? > > Ian Campbell is already maintaining an export tree as a staging area > for an eventual split. He's had it up and running for almost a year > now: > > http://xenbits.xen.org/gitweb/?p=people/ianc/device-tree-rebasing.git > > g. > So there already is a "good way to share the database of hardware descriptions" in addition to the one I provided. -Frank -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe devicetree-spec" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
