Re: [PATCH] PCI: qcom: Add support for modular builds

[Bjorn Helgaas <helgaas@kernel.org>]

On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 04:05:41PM +0300, Dmitry Baryshkov wrote:
> On 14/07/2022 15:19, Stanimir Varbanov wrote:
> > Please take a look why we made it built-in first [1].
> > 
> > If arguments there are still valid I don't see why to make it a module
> > again.
> > 
> > [1] https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/8/24/694
> 
> It looks like there is a move to make all non-essential drivers buildable as
> modules. For example, the Kirin, dra7xx, Meson PCI controllers are now
> buildable as modules. So I think we can follow that and allow building the
> pcie-qcom as a module.

IIUC the arguments in [1] are that:

  - Kconfig is bool, so it can't be built as a module
  - there's no sensible use case for unbind

Those described the situation at the time, and there's no point in
having .remove() and using module_platform_driver() if Kconfig is
bool.

But they don't seem like arguments for why the driver couldn't be
*made* modular.

I think drivers *should* be modular unless there's a technical reason
they can't be.

Bjorn