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Date: Tue, 13 Jun 2017 12:31:04 +0200
From: =?UTF-8?Q?Rafa=C5=82_Mi=C5=82ecki?= <rafal@milecki.pl>
To: Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Cc: "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@kernel.org>, wagi@monom.org,
        dwmw2@infradead.org, arend.vanspriel@broadcom.com, rjw@rjwysocki.net,
        yi1.li@linux.intel.com, atull@opensource.altera.com,
        moritz.fischer@ettus.com, pmladek@suse.com, johannes.berg@intel.com,
        emmanuel.grumbach@intel.com, luciano.coelho@intel.com,
        kvalo@codeaurora.org, luto@kernel.org, torvalds@linux-foundation.org,
        keescook@chromium.org, takahiro.akashi@linaro.org, dhowells@redhat.com,
        pjones@redhat.com, hdegoede@redhat.com, alan@linux.intel.com,
        tytso@mit.edu, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v9 1/5] firmware: add extensible driver data params
In-Reply-To: <20170613090548.GA31421@kroah.com>
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 <20170605213937.26215-1-mcgrof@kernel.org>
 <20170605213937.26215-2-mcgrof@kernel.org>
 <20170613090548.GA31421@kroah.com>
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On 2017-06-13 11:05, Greg KH wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 05, 2017 at 02:39:33PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>> As the firmware API evolves we keep extending functions with more 
>> arguments.
>> Stop this nonsense by proving an extensible data structure which can 
>> be used
>> to represent both user parameters and private internal parameters.
> 
> Let's take a simple C function interface and make it a more complex
> data-driven interface that is impossible to understand and obviously
> understand how it is to be used and works!
> 
> :(
> 
> Seriously, why?  Why are we extending any of this at all?  This series
> adds a ton of new "features" and complexity, but for absolutely no 
> gain.
> 
> Oh, I take it back, you removed 29 lines from the iwlwifi driver.
> 
> That's still not worth it at all, you have yet to sell me on this whole
> complex beast.  I can't see why we need it, and if I, one of the few
> people who thinks they actually understand this kernel interface, can't
> see it, how can you sell it to someone else?
> 
> Sorry, but no, I'm still not going to take this series until you show
> some _REAL_ benefit for it.

FWIW I saw (or maybe still see?) a need to extend request_firmware* API 
to
allow silencing a warning if firmware file is missing.

I even sent a trivial patch adding support for this:
[PATCH V4 1/2] firmware: add more flexible request_firmware_async 
function
https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9588787/
(I think it still applies) but it got rejected due to Luis's big rework.

To be honest after seeing this big & more complex driver data API I just
gave up and decided I don't care about false problem reports that much 
:(