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Date:   Fri, 31 Mar 2023 16:57:05 +0200
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From:   Neil Armstrong <neil.armstrong@linaro.org>
Reply-To: neil.armstrong@linaro.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH RFC 00/20] ARM: oxnas support removal
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To:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>, Olof Johansson <olof@lixom.net>,
        soc@kernel.org, Rob Herring <robh+dt@kernel.org>,
        Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzysztof.kozlowski+dt@linaro.org>,
        Russell King <linux@armlinux.org.uk>,
        Michael Turquette <mturquette@baylibre.com>,
        Stephen Boyd <sboyd@kernel.org>,
        Daniel Lezcano <daniel.lezcano@linaro.org>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>,
        Miquel Raynal <miquel.raynal@bootlin.com>,
        Richard Weinberger <richard@nod.at>,
        Vignesh Raghavendra <vigneshr@ti.com>,
        Giuseppe Cavallaro <peppe.cavallaro@st.com>,
        Alexandre Torgue <alexandre.torgue@foss.st.com>,
        Jose Abreu <joabreu@synopsys.com>,
        "David S . Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>,
        Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>,
        Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>,
        Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>,
        Maxime Coquelin <mcoquelin.stm32@gmail.com>,
        Linus Walleij <linus.walleij@linaro.org>,
        Bartosz Golaszewski <brgl@bgdev.pl>,
        Sebastian Reichel <sre@kernel.org>,
        Philipp Zabel <p.zabel@pengutronix.de>,
        Marc Zyngier <maz@kernel.org>
Cc:     linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org, devicetree@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-clk@vger.kernel.org,
        linux-mtd@lists.infradead.org, Netdev <netdev@vger.kernel.org>,
        linux-stm32@st-md-mailman.stormreply.com,
        "open list:GPIO SUBSYSTEM" <linux-gpio@vger.kernel.org>,
        linux-pm@vger.kernel.org, Daniel Golle <daniel@makrotopia.org>
References: <20230331-topic-oxnas-upstream-remove-v1-0-5bd58fd1dd1f@linaro.org>
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On 31/03/2023 15:42, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 31, 2023, at 10:34, Neil Armstrong wrote:
>> With [1] removing MPCore SMP support, this makes the OX820 barely usable,
>> associated with a clear lack of maintainance, development and migration to
>> dt-schema it's clear that Linux support for OX810 and OX820 should be removed.
>>
>> In addition, the OX810 hasn't been booted for years and isn't even present
>> in an ARM config file.
>>
>> For the OX820, lack of USB and SATA support makes the platform not usable
>> in the current Linux support and relies on off-tree drivers hacked from the
>> vendor (defunct for years) sources.
>>
>> The last users are in the OpenWRT distribution, and today's removal means
>> support will still be in stable 6.1 LTS kernel until end of 2026.
>>
>> If someone wants to take over the development even with lack of SMP, I'll
>> be happy to hand off maintainance.
>>
>> The plan is to apply the first 4 patches first, then the drivers
>> followed by bindings. Finally the MAINTAINANCE entry can be removed.
>>
>> I'm not sure about the process of bindings removal, but perhaps the bindings
>> should be marked as deprecated first then removed later on ?
>>
>> It has been a fun time adding support for this architecture, but it's time
>> to get over!
>>
>> Patch 2 obviously depends on [1].
>>
>> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/all/20230327121317.4081816-1-arnd@kernel.org/
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Neil Armstrong <neil.armstrong@linaro.org>
> 
> Thanks a lot for going through this and preparing the patches!
> 
> I've discussed this with Daniel Golle on the OpenWRT channel as well,
> and he indicated that the timing is probably fine here, as there are
> already close to zero downloads for oxnas builds, and the 6.1 kernel
> will only be part of a release in 2024.
> 
> For the dependency on my other patch, I'd suggest you instead
> remove the SMP files here as well, which means we can merge either
> part independently based on just 6.3-rc. I can do that change
> myself by picking up patches 1-4 of your RFC series, or maybe you
> can send resend them after rebase to 6.3-rc1.

Ack I'll send patches 1-4 rebased on v6.3-rc1 with the acks
and sent a PR next week.

> 
> For the driver removals, I think we can merge those at the same
> time as the platform removal since there are no shared header files
> that would cause build time regressions and there are no runtime
> regressions other than breaking the platform itself. Maybe
> just send the driver removal separately to the subsystem
> maintainers with my
> 
> Acked-by: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>

Thanks, I'll submit those individually once the first patches are merged.

Neil

> 
>       Arnd