Re: Freescale Linux BSP review

[Arnd Bergmann <arnd-r2nGTMty4D4@public.gmane.org>]

On Monday 20 December 2010 19:07:30 Jerome Glisse wrote:
> > I also do not think that it is at all kernel policy to disallow kernel
> > drivers which do not have opensource userspace components. In fact,
> > Linus Torvalds begs to differ on this matter. The fact of the matter
> > is that the driver lives now, Qualcomm have it in their upstream,
> > Freescale have it in their upstream, Linaro are going to fetch from
> > that. It doesn't need to go all the way to stable, because people can
> > compile their own kernels if they want (and Linaro is there provide
> > the source to do that with the best interoperability with the silicon
> > vendors' chips as possible).
> 
> I was just expressing my opinion on upstream, if i see this driver
> showing up on lkml i will reply with a nak and explain why (pretty
> much same argument as here). I don't have any authority on linux
> kernel but as far as i understand it, it's about reviewing what's gets
> in, so i hope my review opinion would matter (what ever the out come
> is).

There is a broad agreement on disallowing new kernel to userspace
interfaces in the upstream kernel unless there is an application
using it that is both open source and considered useful.

I don't think Linaro as a group takes a position or should take
a position on closed source user space at all -- we just don't
need to bother with it because we have enough work to do on free
components. However, we have a policy on kernel code and that is
as I mentioned before that we don't take code unless it's about to
go upstream. In this case, upstream doesn't take the driver, so
Linaro won't either.

	Arnd