On Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 9:15 PM Oleksij Rempel <o.rempel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > For example drivers/net/wireless/realtek/rtw89/debug.c is 2404 of potentially > removable code. Some one should review it or outoptimize it by using > existing frameworks. Only ~28 of those lines are for the debug logging you point out. (There's a few more in the .h file, but still.) Most of that is unrelated code for dumping other debug info about the Realtek chip/firmware/driver state, or performing other debugging operations. > As you noticed, not many people are willing to review this driver. IMO, > it is related to the RealTek reputation of making code drops with lots > of not not usable or duplicated code. So to say - offloading the dirty work to > the community. For example this patch set: > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/log/drivers/staging/rts5139?h=v5.13&qt=author&q=rempel FWIW, that driver was introduced into mainline (staging) by somebody @ Realsil, not Realtek: https://git.kernel.org/linus/1dac4186bcc663cb8c2bcc59481aea8fe9124a6c Sure, Realtek previously developed plenty of copy/paste/modify Linux drivers, and it's likely most of that code was based off their downstream drivers (which suffered from duplication), but they rarely (never?) tried to get them merged upstream. Can you really blame them for having non-upstream-friendly code in their not-intended-for-upstream drivers? Now they've been nudged into doing the upstream work themselves (*cough* *cough*) with rtw88 and now rtw89, and IMO, they aren't suffering nearly of the same kinds of duplication problems you note. But agreed, the reputational problems might still be lingering. If we're opining on lack of review: I haven't watched so many other wireless drivers' review and inclusion in mainline (I tend to bother with them once they're already mostly upstream, and I mostly just need to fix bugs), but my impression is that the biggest impediment is Kalle's limited resources. Most other successful drivers have dedicated submaintainers who do the review or else append their name on submissions and do pull requests, whether or not they got much mailing list review. Everyone else who isn't so lucky has to wait in line for Kalle, often for quite some time. This is getting a bit off topic though. > This new rtw89 driver seems to confirm this reputation, but I cani't say it > for sure without spending a week on reverse engineering it. FWIW, I've looked through it lightly (and I looked through rtw88 quite a bit), and I don't see much (or any, really) of those same kinds of problems. It's not perfect code of course, but I don't think duplication is the biggest sort of problem. Anyway, thanks for reviewing, and thanks for any issues you do point out! Brian
