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Date:   Thu, 11 Oct 2018 17:08:37 -0700
From:   Matthias Kaehlcke <mka@chromium.org>
To:     Brian Norris <briannorris@chromium.org>
Cc:     Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>,
        Rob Herring <robh+dt@kernel.org>,
        Mark Rutland <mark.rutland@arm.com>,
        "open list:OPEN FIRMWARE AND FLATTENED DEVICE TREE BINDINGS" 
        <devicetree@vger.kernel.org>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
        linux-wireless <linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org>,
        linux-spi <linux-spi@vger.kernel.org>,
        netdev <netdev@vger.kernel.org>, swboyd@chromium.org,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] dt-bindings: Add bindings for aliases node
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On Tue, Oct 09, 2018 at 11:31:42AM -0700, Brian Norris wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 09, 2018 at 09:22:07AM +0200, Geert Uytterhoeven wrote:
> > Please note these aliases become cumbersome once you start considering
> > (dynamic) DT overlays.  That's why I made them optional in the sh-sci
> > serial driver, cfr. commit 7678f4c20fa7670f ("serial: sh-sci: Add support
> > for dynamic instances").
> 
> Note that as I understand it, the entire point of documenting this sort
> of thing is to help solidify the interface between a DT aware boot
> program (e.g., bootloader) and a device tree which is provided
> separately, to avoid memorizing node/path hierarchy. It doesn't need to
> (and doesn't, as I read it) enforce an OS's device naming policy.
> 
> > Relevant parts of the commit description are:
> > 
> >     On DT platforms, the sh-sci driver requires the presence of "serialN"
> >     aliases in DT, from which instance IDs are derived.  If a DT alias is
> >     missing, the drivers fails to probe the corresponding serial port.
> > 
> >     This becomes cumbersome when considering DT overlays, as currently
> >     there is no upstream support for dynamically updating the /aliases node
> >     in DT.
> 
> That part is not a DT spec problem :)
> 
> >     Furthermore, even in the presence of such support, hardcoded
> >     instance IDs in independent overlays are prone to conflicts.
> > 
> >     Hence add support for dynamic instance IDs, to be used in the absence of
> >     a DT alias.  This makes serial ports behave similar to I2C and SPI
> >     buses, which already support dynamic instances.
> 
> This seems to be a much different sort of problem. People always love
> having predictable IDs given by the OS (myself included), but that's
> just plain hard to do and impossible in some cases. I don't think that's
> what this document is about though.
> 
> IOW, this document seems pretty consistent with the above: it doesn't
> require the usage of aliases (and it seems silly to have a driver
> *require* an alias) -- it just documents how one should name such an
> alias if you expect multiple independent software components to
> understand it.
> 
> > To clarify my point: R-Car M2-W has 4 different types of serial ports, for a
> > total of 18 ports, and the two ports on a board labeled 0 and 1 may not
> > correspond to the physical first two ports (what's "first" in a collection of
> > 4 different types?).
> > 
> > Aliases may be fine for referring to the main serial console (labeled
> > port 0 on the device, too), and the primary Ethernet interface (so U-Boot
> > knows where to add the "local-mac-address" property), but beyond that,
> > I think they should be avoided.
> 
> That's fair enough. Just because the solution isn't an all-purpose tool
> doesn't mean it shouldn't be documented. The general concept is already
> in ePAPR, but it's just not very specific about property names.

Basically what Brian said, this doc doesn't encourage the use of
aliases, it just intends to establish a consistent naming for cases
where aliases are needed/more useful than harmful. The misuse of
aliases needs to be addressed in the reviews of the patches that
introduce them.

Maybe the doc should include a recommendation to use aliases
sparingly? I'm open to input on that from folks who have a better
understanding of the potential pitfalls ;-)

Cheers

Matthias