[PATCH v2 00/18] OMAP4: PM data big spring cleanup and fixes

[rnayak@ti.com (Rajendra Nayak)]

On 7/8/2011 12:11 AM, Paul Walmsley wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Jul 2011, Martin Fouts wrote:
>
>> From: Tony Lindgren [tony at atomide.com]
>>
>>> The second problem we have here is "why does adding 4460 support depend
>>> on a cosmetic clean-up patch". That dependency should not exist at all
>>> as it seems the 4460 patches should work even without this patch.
>>
>> I agree. Had the original submitter had the foresight to realize that
>> the code should work for all 44xx family processors, we would have no
>> issue at all.
>
> Uhhh...
>
> The original 4430 data, which is mostly what we're talking about here, was
> added in 2009.  Maybe a few people inside TI knew what was going to change
> and what was going to be the same for future OMAP4 parts.  But even if
> someone did know, the decision of what to call a chip often isn't up to
> engineers, it's up to marketing, which picks whatever name they like.
> You know, like Linux 2.6.40^H^H^H^H^H^H3.0.
>
> So back in 2009, the submitter and maintainers were faced with a choice:
>
> Option 1. Submit patches with facts.  "OMAP4430".  Don't speculate what
> future, as-yet-nonexistent products will be numbered, and what their
> feature set will be.  Plan to generalize later once it is known exactly
> what needs to be generalized.
>
> Option 2. Try to predict what marketing will call the next chip, and what
> features will still be present, then put that into the codebase.
> "OMAP44XX".  Hope you guess right so you don't have to change them all if
> marketing or engineering comes up with something different.
>
> So, what's the right answer?
>
> I probably can't tell you that, but I can tell you that in 2009, option 1
> seemed more technically conservative.  So that's what we did.  Maybe that
> isn't the right answer, though.

I completely agree with Paul. What if the 4460 of today was called
4640 for some reason. (Well we do have a 3630, don't we)
Would the OMAP44XX work then, no. We would need a OMAP4XXX instead.

>
>
> - Paul