Return-path: Received: from smtp.codeaurora.org ([198.145.29.96]:44767 "EHLO smtp.codeaurora.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752384AbcIBO4g (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 Sep 2016 10:56:36 -0400 From: Kalle Valo To: Amitkumar Karwar Cc: "linux-wireless\@vger.kernel.org" Subject: Re: [PATCH] mwifiex: handle edmac vendor command References: <1461945483-3239-1-git-send-email-akarwar@marvell.com> <87zirg8qxo.fsf@kamboji.qca.qualcomm.com> <87poon1xka.fsf@kamboji.qca.qualcomm.com> <0fa2b5d5e09f4396a9c273c3c8dfc3db@SC-EXCH04.marvell.com> Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2016 17:56:29 +0300 In-Reply-To: <0fa2b5d5e09f4396a9c273c3c8dfc3db@SC-EXCH04.marvell.com> (Amitkumar Karwar's message of "Thu, 1 Sep 2016 16:34:56 +0000") Message-ID: <87d1km1hb6.fsf@kamboji.qca.qualcomm.com> (sfid-20160902_165643_708789_86F2558E) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Amitkumar Karwar writes: >> Sorry for the delay. I have been thinking about vendor commands quite a >> lot and I don't think they belong to upstream drivers. For regular use >> cases (used by normal users) we have nl80211, for developer and testing >> purposes we have debugfs and for manufacturing type of tests we have >> nl80211 testmode interface. The focus of development should be adding >> new functionality to nl80211 (and other generic interfaces), not to >> driver specific vendor commands. >> >> I know brcm80211 and ti's wlcore have few vendor commands but I'm hoping >> to remove them sometime soon. >> >> Thoughts? >> > > Thanks for your reply. > > There is something called energy detect mode. Chip can detect non-WiFi > radio signal also and monitor it for specified time before > transmitting frames. As per ETSI specification, enabling this mode is > mandatory for some countries for certain frequencies. To me this looks this is something which can be generic, not a driver specific interface. And why can't regulatory code enable this automatically, without any user involvement? It already knows what country we are in. > The purpose of this patch is to configure the chip for working in this > mode. I can see cfg80211 has a framework to handle vendor specific > commands and events. I think having vendor commands would be helpful > to support vendor specific functionalities which can't be generalized. First of all, I don't see how the interface is mwifiex specific. If I could trust that using vendor commands will not slow down the development of nl80211, and other generic interfaces, I might think otherwise. But at the moment I am nowhere near that. > I suppose debugfs interface is only for collecting stats and info > which can be used for debugging purpose. Correct. I consider debugfs as a development and debugging interface for developers and advanced users. -- Kalle Valo