Re: On brcm80211 maintenance and support

[Kalle Valo <kvalo@kernel.org>]

Julian Calaby <julian.calaby@gmail.com> writes:

> Hi Dmitry,
>
> (relevant people and lists CC'd)
>
> On Fri, Oct 6, 2023 at 3:16 AM Dmitry Antipov <dmantipov@yandex.ru> wrote:
>>
>> Kalle,
>>
>> what's an actual status of brcm80211 driver? It seems
>> that the relevant MAINTAINERS entries are no longer
>> useful, and [1] states that Broadcom is just "disappeared".
>
> Arend hasn't posted since February:
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-wireless/63f72045-e51d-d9a4-a0ed-c221bcdcee03@gmail.com/
>
> Franky is still reviewing things as of early August:
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-wireless/CA+8PC_evb-6Y3dKnAN4BN=ODEVxY5-cDb6Lc72u0j1WBtx7p1A@mail.gmail.com/
>
> Hante hasn't posted since 2018:
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-wireless/4f6223b8083ed69432493a37d4f45b69@mail.gmail.com/
>
> Hector Martin has a bunch of Apple-specific patches downstream in the
> Asahi Linux kernel and has been looking for guidance on how to
> upstream it without any real answers:
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-wireless/181af6e9-799d-b730-dc14-ee2de2541f35@marcan.st/
>
> There's also speculation that the Raspberry Pi people have downstream
> patches too, but I haven't been able to find anything concrete in a
> very brief search.

Thanks for the research, that is helpful.

> Finally, the Cypress / Infineon people appear to be uninterested in
> discussing the driver.
>
> I think it's pretty safe to say that this driver is nearly
> unmaintained by Broadcom, definitely unmaintained by Cypress /
> Infineon and Arend is unable to answer questions relating to anything
> beyond the code as-written.
>
> Kalle, should this driver get orphaned?

We definitely need to consider that but let's first wait for Arend to
comment.

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