ACPI vs DT at runtime

[arnd@arndb.de (Arnd Bergmann)]

On Monday 18 November 2013, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
> > Can you point to specific patches?
> 
> No, because they weren't publically posted, so I don't feel that I can
> say all that much; they were from quite a large company though.

I see.

> > I can't say I'm an expert on this, but everything I've seen with ACPI
> > is tables of binary data with four-letter identifiers that are defined
> > by the ACPI group, but not using strings in a similar manner to DT.
> 
> They are using strings which are the same as the DT properties, but
> without the vendor prefix - but yes, to only retrieve things like
> booleans, u32s and such like.  They also have support for fixed-rate
> clocks via the clk API too...
> 
> I'd like them to post the patches publically so a more open discussion
> could occur.

I'd definitely like that too, especially since managing clocks etc.
is (as multiple people have pointed out in this thread) a very
un-ACPI-like thing to do and it would be important for them to have
the debate whether that has a chance of getting accepted in the kernel
(or the ACPI spec, for that matter) or not.

	Arnd