From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: richardcochran@gmail.com (Richard Cochran) Date: Thu, 25 Jul 2013 20:48:34 +0200 Subject: DT bindings as ABI [was: Do we have people interested in device tree janitoring / cleanup?] In-Reply-To: <20130725182920.GA24955@e106331-lin.cambridge.arm.com> References: <20130725175702.GC22291@e106331-lin.cambridge.arm.com> <51F168FC.9070906@wwwdotorg.org> <20130725182920.GA24955@e106331-lin.cambridge.arm.com> Message-ID: <20130725184834.GA8296@netboy> To: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org List-Id: linux-arm-kernel.lists.infradead.org On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 07:29:20PM +0100, Mark Rutland wrote: > On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 07:05:48PM +0100, Stephen Warren wrote: > > > > I don't think having people "rely" on the bindings is the issue so much > > as the awareness that if they do, there will be compatibility issues for > > unstable bindings. > > As long as we can make sufficiently clear that trying to use an unstable > binding is going to be *very* painful, and not necessarily supported. Oh, man. The introduction of DT into ARM Linux was supposed to make everyone's life sooo much easier. Of course, based on experience with powerpc, I never believed it*, but still I would expect to hear that the DT bindings are, well, a *binding* contract between the board developer, boot loader, and the kernel. Once it is working with a particular kernel, a DT board description file should continue to work indefinitely with newer kernels. Anything less is a regression, pure and simple. If you go around changing the bindings willy nilly, then what is point of having DT at all? Thanks, Richard * http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/2011-April/046963.html http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/2011-May/050255.html http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/2011-May/050256.html http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/linux-arm-kernel/2011-May/050264.html