Re: devicetree repository separation/migration

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 




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.
--
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe devicetree" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html




[Index of Archives]     [Device Tree Compilter]     [Device Tree Spec]     [Linux Driver Backports]     [Video for Linux]     [Linux USB Devel]     [Linux PCI Devel]     [Linux Audio Users]     [Linux Kernel]     [Linux SCSI]     [XFree86]     [Yosemite Backpacking]
  Powered by Linux