Re: [PATCH v4 01/12] misc: add driver for sequencer serial port

[Cyril Chemparathy <cyril-l0cyMroinI0@public.gmane.org>]

On 10/28/2010 11:49 AM, Linus Walleij wrote:
> 2010/10/26 Cyril Chemparathy <cyril-l0cyMroinI0@public.gmane.org>:
> 
>> TI's sequencer serial port (TI-SSP) is a jack-of-all-trades type of serial port
>> device.  It has a built-in programmable execution engine that can be programmed
>> to operate as almost any serial bus (I2C, SPI, EasyScale, and others).
>>
>> This patch adds a driver for this controller device.  The driver does not
>> expose a user-land interface.  Protocol drivers built on top of this layer are
>> expected to remain in-kernel.
> 
> Why is this thing in drivers/misc?
> 
> drivers/mfd is IMHO the apropriate place for a driver like this, and
> the subdrivers should be migrated to use mfd cells and platform
> drivers for the subdevices.
> 
> All functions and abstractions you create here look suspiciously
> lot like other MFD devices.
> 
> But please, beat me up if I'm wrong!

Alan had raised the same concern earlier, and my response was:

> Unlike MFDs, this device doesn't have cells with differing
> functionality.  Instead it has functionally identical ports that can
> operate in a variety of modes.  That said, does this still fit in with
> other MFD drivers?  If so, I don't see a problem with moving it there.

I don't see a problem with moving this into MFD, but this won't be able
to use any of the functionality provided by mfd-core.

Thanks
Cyril.

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