Subject: Re: New Realtek driver
To: Greg KH <gregkh@linux.com>
Cc: Kalle Valo <kvalo@codeaurora.org>,
        linux-wireless <linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org>,
        Birming Chiu <birming@realtek.com>, Pkshih <pkshih@realtek.com>
References: <50a63e7a-045a-3386-661a-5bfe077e5b0a@lwfinger.net>
 <20170721150820.GC18198@kroah.com>
From: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>
Message-ID: <2cf70a42-6665-1da9-7c38-32751f2dc981@lwfinger.net> (sfid-20170722_023649_437714_BC3FE539)
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2017 19:36:41 -0500
MIME-Version: 1.0
In-Reply-To: <20170721150820.GC18198@kroah.com>
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Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org

On 07/21/2017 10:08 AM, Greg KH wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 20, 2017 at 08:18:13PM -0500, Larry Finger wrote:
>> Kalle and Greg,
>>
>> Once again I find myself in the awkward position of needing to submit code
>> to two different trees, i.e. wireless and staging.
>>
>> The code in question concerns a new Realtek device, the RTL8822BE. The
>> device is already shipping, and Realtek would like it to be available in
>> kernel 3.14. As it consists of ~120,000 new lines of code, I have assured
>> Realtek that 3.14 would not be possible, at least in the wireless tree. What
>> I plan to do is submit the changes in the existing drivers through wireless,
>> and the three totally new drivers through staging. My expectation is that
>> this code would live for a relatively short time there, but going that route
>> would give time for the code to be reviewed properly, but still be available
>> in a kernel driver. All of the new code will be available in a GitHub repo
>> maintained by Realtek for those users whose distros do not configure
>> anything in staging.
>>
>> For my part, I will push the wireless tree material as fast as I can and
>> hope there is time available near the end of the 4.13-rcX sequence for the
>> material to reach 4.14-rc1.
> 
> Why do you need a staging driver to have changes in the wireless tree?
> Staging drivers should be self-contained and not rely on anything
> outside of it in order to work properly (i.e. don't add code to the real
> kernel only for a staging driver.)

Greg,

To add the new driver to staging without any other changes, I will need to 
duplicate a lot of code. That is no problem, other than the duplicate entry 
points that will show up in a makeallyes configuration. If that is what you 
want, then that is what I will do.

Larry