Re: [PATCH] OMAP: USB EHCI: Support final revision of USB board

[David Brownell <david-b@pacbell.net>]

On Thursday 18 September 2008, Gadiyar, Anand wrote:
> >		(Hint for TI folk:  why not write the
> > code that way in the first place, avoiding all the delays inherent in
> > writing code you *know* is unsuitable for merging to mainline?)
> 
> Well, there are only a limited number of hours in a day. :)

Bzip2 is a good way to compress things ... can that help
make those hours more productive?  ;)


> Hint taken: that that code was initially written badly is a valid point.

And likewise, I think, that it's not an uncommon way for
things to start out.  The real problem is that such code
then sits in some (OMAP) tree for a long time and never gets
fixed and sent upstream.

One TI engineer (who I won't name!) said to me this year
that he thinks the issue is part of TI's current process.
Paraphrasing:  the code is treated as "done" when it merges
to some OMAP branch ... *NOT* when it goes upstream.  To the
extent that's true, it should get fixed.  For drivers, there
should be no problems doing so.  (Infrastructure is often a
bit different.)


> But fixing it up is a non-trivial effort as is making sure it works. At the time I 
> wrote that e-mail (August 25) I did intend to have it out well before Felipe's
> 11 September plan.
> 
> As they say, the best laid plans of mice and men... At the moment it does
> not look like I'll be able to do this anytime soon.

Right.  That happens.

 
> And if it's going upstream, it needs to be in better shape than it currently is.
> 
> Even assuming that linux-usb decides to take it in it's current shape, it's 
> definitely not going to help things when the OHCI driver comes in. And if
> I'm going to be doing that cleanup anyway, I might as well get it right the
> first time. Correct?

Unless that stretches the EHCI merge out too much.  Drivers sitting
around outside of mainline for a long time (a year or more) make
trouble.  Updates to mainline generally don't make trouble.

 
> I'm going to be re-arranging this code, writing it the way it ought to have
> been the first time. But please don't expect this tomorrow.

No, I'm not ... as I noted!  Though I'd hope it's ready to push upstream
in the 2.6.29-rc0 window...

I'm just piling on with a few observations about a process problem here.
We've seen versions of this for a long time now.  Once you achieve that
re-arrangement ... it'd be nicer all around (for you, for me, for everyone)
if the problem came up less regularly in the future.

- Dave

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