Re: [PATCH 0/2] thermal: Add support of multiple sensors

[Kevin Hilman <khilman@baylibre.com>]

Hi Eduardo, Daniel,

Eduardo Valentin <eduval@amazon.com> writes:

> On Fri, Feb 18, 2022 at 09:46:02AM +0100, Alexandre Bailon wrote:
>> CAUTION: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you can confirm the sender and know the content is safe.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Following this comment [1], this updates thermal_of to support multiple
>> sensors.
>> 
>> This has some limitations:
>> - A sensor must have its own termal zone, even if it is also registered
>>   inside a thermal zone supporting multiple sensors.
>> - Some callbacks (such as of_thermal_set_trips) have been updated to support
>>   multiple sensors but I don't know if this really make sense.
>> - of_thermal_get_trend have not been updated to support multiple sensors.
>>   This would probably make sense to support it but I am not sure how to do it,
>>   especially for the average.
>
> Great to see this having somewhat a form now!
>
> Overall the idea is sane and aligned to what I had in mind back during the 2019 Linux plumbers: one thermal zone should have multiple sensor inputs.
> https://lpc.events/event/4/page/34-accepted-microconferences#PMSummary
>
> In fact, that is aligned to what I originally wrote in the thermal device tree bindings:
> https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/devicetree/bindings/thermal/thermal-zones.yaml#n79
>
> The only major concern with your series is the usage of of-thermal to achieve the multiple sensors per thermal zone.
> While that solves the problem, it has the following limitations:
> (1) limited to devices described in device tree. everybody else is left out.
> (2) it keeps extending the code duplication in of-thermal. 
>
> My suggestion here is have the thermal core aware of the multiple sensors per thermal zone.
>
> That has the advantage of:
> (a) cleanup the sensor handling within of-thermal
> (b) expand the multi sensor per zone to all types of thermal drivers
> (c) standardize the way to handle the multi sensor.

This cleanup all sounds like the right direction to be headed, but since
this has been planned since 2019 and nothing has happended, what is the
level of urgency is for this of-thermal -> thermal core cleanup/rework?

In $SUBJECT series, we have a fully functional series that solves an
existing problem and takes a big step in the right long-term direction.
While it indeed has the has limitations you mention, I don't think that
should block the merging of this series.  More importantly, there are
existing drivers[1] as well as forthcoming ones from MTK that depend on
this series. Those are blocked if you require the of-thermal -> core
move first.

As a maintainer also, I fully understand that maintainer bandwith is
limited, and it's always nice to have contributors do core framework
development when possible, but IMO, in this case I don't think it should
be a prerequisite since a follow-up series to do the core work would not
affect any functionality or bindings etc.  I don't see any reasons not
do to this incrementally.

So I would kindly request (read: beg, plead & grovel) that you seriously
consider merging this series as a first phase and the of-thermal -> core
change be done as a second phase.  Yes, I fully understand that punting
this to a second phase means it might not get done soon.  But it's been
waiting for years already, so it seems the urgency is low.  Meanwhile,
there are OF users that are ready to use this feature today.

Thanks for considering,

Kevin

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mediatek/20210617114707.10618-1-ben.tseng@mediatek.com/