Re: [PATCH net-next v13 11/16] net: dsa: mt7530: use external PCS driver

From: "Russell King (Oracle)" <linux@armlinux.org.uk>
To: Vladimir Oltean <vladimir.oltean@nxp.com>
Cc: "Arınç ÜNAL" <arinc.unal@arinc9.com>,
	"Daniel Golle" <daniel@makrotopia.org>,
	netdev@vger.kernel.org, linux-mediatek@lists.infradead.org,
	linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org,
	linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org,
	"Heiner Kallweit" <hkallweit1@gmail.com>,
	"Lorenzo Bianconi" <lorenzo@kernel.org>,
	"Mark Lee" <Mark-MC.Lee@mediatek.com>,
	"John Crispin" <john@phrozen.org>, "Felix Fietkau" <nbd@nbd.name>,
	"AngeloGioacchino Del Regno"
	<angelogioacchino.delregno@collabora.com>,
	"Matthias Brugger" <matthias.bgg@gmail.com>,
	"DENG Qingfang" <dqfext@gmail.com>,
	"Landen Chao" <Landen.Chao@mediatek.com>,
	"Sean Wang" <sean.wang@mediatek.com>,
	"Paolo Abeni" <pabeni@redhat.com>,
	"Jakub Kicinski" <kuba@kernel.org>,
	"Eric Dumazet" <edumazet@google.com>,
	"David S. Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>,
	"Vladimir Oltean" <olteanv@gmail.com>,
	"Florian Fainelli" <f.fainelli@gmail.com>,
	"Andrew Lunn" <andrew@lunn.ch>, "Bjørn Mork" <bjorn@mork.no>,
	"Frank Wunderlich" <frank-w@public-files.de>,
	"Alexander Couzens" <lynxis@fe80.eu>
Subject: Re: [PATCH net-next v13 11/16] net: dsa: mt7530: use external PCS driver
Date: Tue, 14 Mar 2023 23:11:58 +0000	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <ZBD/PrMM7vxae5gY@shell.armlinux.org.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20230314223413.velxur7gi7snpdei@skbuf>

On Wed, Mar 15, 2023 at 12:34:13AM +0200, Vladimir Oltean wrote:
> But the mt7530 maintainers have gone
> pretty silent as of late, and I, as a fallback maintainer with no
> hardware, have had to send 2 bug fixes to the mt7530 and 1 to the
> mtk_eth_soc driver in the past month, to address the reports.

That's an under-statement, and not just the DSA driver, but the
ethernet driver too. It's been years trying to get the attention
of anyone to sort out the pre-March 2020 crud in this driver, and
no one seems to care, and none of the alleged maintainers bother
replying.

I don't believe anyone who claims to be a maintainer for either the
DSA or Ethernet driver has commented on any of my patches or provided
any review.

In my mind, these drivers do not have maintainers.

What I have to resort to is spotting potential victims^wtesters on
the mailing lists to try stuff out for me - which is really not
how this should work.

It seems to me that this is the old "chuck code over the wall into
mainline, then do a runner" approach to kernel maintenance.

So, honestly, the sooner these drivers get proper maintainers, the
better - and if someone wants to step up to do that amongst those
who are involved in the current work, I'm all for that - it would
be a hell of a lot better than the current situation.

-- 
RMK's Patch system: https://www.armlinux.org.uk/developer/patches/
FTTP is here! 40Mbps down 10Mbps up. Decent connectivity at last!

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