Re: [PATCH] PCI: mvebu: Mark driver as BROKEN

["Russell King (Oracle)" <linux@armlinux.org.uk>]

On Tue, Aug 08, 2023 at 09:31:54AM +0200, Pali Rohár wrote:
> On Friday 04 August 2023 12:06:55 Bjorn Helgaas wrote:
> > [+cc Krzysztof]
> > 
> > On Fri, Aug 04, 2023 at 12:35:13PM +0100, Russell King (Oracle) wrote:
> > > So it seems this patch got applied, but it wasn't Cc'd to
> > > linux-arm-kernel or anyone else, so those of us with platforms never
> > > had a chance to comment on it.
> > > 
> > > *** This change causes a regression to working setups. ***
> > > 
> > > It appears that the *only* reason this patch was proposed is to stop a
> > > kernel developer receiving problem reports from a set of users, but
> > > completely ignores that there is another group of users where this works
> > > fine - and thus the addition of this patch causes working setups to
> > > regress.
> > > 
> > > Because one is being bothered with problem reports is not a reason to
> > > mark a driver broken - and especially not doing so in a way that those
> > > who may be affected don't get an opportunity to comment on the patch!
> > > Also, there is _zero_ information provided on what the reported problems
> > > actually are, so no one else can guess what these issues are.
> > > 
> > > However, given that there are working setups and this change causes
> > > those to regress, it needs to be reverted.
> > > 
> > > For example, I have an Atheros PCIe WiFi card in an Armada 388 Clearfog
> > > platform, and this works fine.
> > > 
> > > Uwe has a SATA controller for a bunch of disks in an Armada 370 based
> > > NAS platform that is connected to PCIe, and removing PCIe support
> > > effectively makes his platform utterly useless.
> > > 
> > > Please revert this patch.
> > 
> > Sorry for the inconvenience.
> > 
> > I was under the mistaken impression that making the driver depend on
> > CONFIG_BROKEN would keep the driver available but only if the user
> > explicitly requested it, similar to how 
> > CONFIG_COMPILE_TEST works.  But obviously that's not the case, so
> > we'll revert the change.
> > 
> > I queued up the revert below, including a note in the Kconfig help
> > text about the known issues.
> > 
> > commit 814b6bb15367 ("Revert "PCI: mvebu: Mark driver as BROKEN"")
> > Author: Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com>
> > Date:   Fri Aug 4 11:54:43 2023 -0500
> > 
> >     Revert "PCI: mvebu: Mark driver as BROKEN"
> >     
> >     b3574f579ece ("PCI: mvebu: Mark driver as BROKEN") made it impossible to
> >     enable the pci-mvebu driver.  The driver does have known problems, but as
> >     Russell and Uwe reported, it does work in some configurations, so removing
> >     it broke some working setups.
> >     
> >     Revert b3574f579ece so pci-mvebu is available.  Mention the known problems
> >     in the Kconfig help text.
> >     
> >     Reported-by: Russell King (Oracle) <linux@armlinux.org.uk>
> >     Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/ZMzicVQEyHyZzBOc@shell.armlinux.org.uk
> >     Reported-by: Uwe Kleine-König <u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de>
> >     Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20230804134622.pmbymxtzxj2yfhri@pengutronix.de
> >     Signed-off-by: Bjorn Helgaas <bhelgaas@google.com>
> > 
> 
> What you are trying to achieve with this patch now? Do you think that it
> is really correct to show that everything is working for everybody
> correctly? Use a common sense here.

Common sense is not to break people's working setups. You seem to lack
that appreciation.

-- 
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