From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mail-pl1-f177.google.com (mail-pl1-f177.google.com [209.85.214.177]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by smtp.subspace.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 29DF71BF37 for ; Tue, 4 Mar 2025 01:45:11 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; arc=none smtp.client-ip=209.85.214.177 ARC-Seal:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1741052713; cv=none; b=R8axb7Hn77I74qoujtBIrYPWzxeffQx1Y2Lzul8TQ5FDSX+JSi2nB7QjjihFhBa53YF5uGfl/8aH0GKwwR9oAsD3sbg2kRVaGXru7XZgrL2U83Zu6Z5m9wQnQjZw6XUiUnxGnmlYb5o8pHB5P/MPwSRxQYKhQykuBDQylRUE/50= ARC-Message-Signature:i=1; a=rsa-sha256; d=subspace.kernel.org; s=arc-20240116; t=1741052713; c=relaxed/simple; bh=1hbBKhKn+M9MITSVZz04JZt4RK2NO2PHHwHQXMnuHws=; h=Date:From:To:Cc:Subject:Message-ID:References:MIME-Version: Content-Type:Content-Disposition:In-Reply-To; b=EKsJH2U3IQEIi3HTcJHSJV4SyBJxKRS9WxGk39JpKYYXlSw4F0WyKgsz42rXTSAINoxK2YjpQDjKGlt4k5coQeGB4Wt/l/3oH9WHF07YmfMof43Y775W1/C9QaOfVVvy3ZFYgi05KOi+KLPlIVbbVlD6P6d9ujg0P3KXLT85qQo= ARC-Authentication-Results:i=1; smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=chromium.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=chromium.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=chromium.org header.i=@chromium.org header.b=nlG5pdNz; arc=none smtp.client-ip=209.85.214.177 Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dmarc=pass (p=none dis=none) header.from=chromium.org Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; spf=pass smtp.mailfrom=chromium.org Authentication-Results: smtp.subspace.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=chromium.org header.i=@chromium.org header.b="nlG5pdNz" Received: by mail-pl1-f177.google.com with SMTP id d9443c01a7336-2232b12cd36so68562375ad.0 for ; Mon, 03 Mar 2025 17:45:11 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=chromium.org; s=google; t=1741052711; x=1741657511; darn=vger.kernel.org; h=in-reply-to:content-disposition:mime-version:references:message-id :subject:cc:to:from:date:from:to:cc:subject:date:message-id:reply-to; bh=9GZZp8+oIePiapzrIPxDWnNkQ4bhl4hE+C4f4poaQfU=; b=nlG5pdNz/6nXQ0DxRhf1WxmJWqGTcYnAY4dnOScJXBStiJwfmFF4vOUTmaG5jyfJTf oQ8w6zFwFubsRQ5ByhC7NJvOugh81dgXvgMpDrdxLGauMdx7fY8ZEimt+iP4/qK9hXp/ OSjUAkhwc4bKA1mLD1xh3w17SguoTxXoGIAec= X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20230601; t=1741052711; x=1741657511; h=in-reply-to:content-disposition:mime-version:references:message-id :subject:cc:to:from:date:x-gm-message-state:from:to:cc:subject:date :message-id:reply-to; bh=9GZZp8+oIePiapzrIPxDWnNkQ4bhl4hE+C4f4poaQfU=; b=f1qSxH+r84ukvO1eXzdmeU58s5G3AZLiyrdR0ytmzpPWTvUyCp95uDFLWXAqxNC7ub zd9Dof68PbkHBXu3IxJiqC4zwPynaevX18NZBnnD/cQvbeSah7FdayCnlWBxupklnwB9 kNiV01frZFux8B04Qf5XAjU85u00z/x/dA6Igznd13BKGmupgV5njeET5Xg21dBkHfQz /54VB+Iy+KkAqrd5S5CtPB5pSaR054w2T/IuhV3Q5X/KxTX1jfhfseS6WgAIYtFi/Syo XNr9DKeA4gicDbsJPVmmvSYugoZHdx35xhy8QVngeFq1+IW4liHWoiFuH2olr/jZh1Z9 z5PA== X-Gm-Message-State: AOJu0Yzl2f8TPLbe2rytjTKpotH8yN0US9mPNKW9LZli1Fw5bDhqyh80 xZXLcM8kkeossjep/i3m6raZv+0U/7gkC9tFjc5itLyZA+1ks04xnb6zVQkACw== X-Gm-Gg: ASbGncv0DyzyvGOR7x6UDU75l7kiLT4pbLlxga+0uvx/OOUm56z74B7SIjd+tsk7XyY 1yjTx0esOrRanUjMZfQOqFjV1lxfk9nW1xnUi51p/zLKeik4hgwD1W+60/MZR77KY1Swjd+M6uE 4KAAROe7vKTFn9EXeICTDz+qsPJMyLBljcuvpYzBbOIdtKeauTvtCHV4YqomerCvS+k6RRgHU8R NFPcjfDiHc5aVq040aASEHv63rZHX65Ya1fSbpYIR2TUE+B52/Nd5tnWOgi+8MPUZyrkabc31O7 CGJyPx5MSxSvtcKFc/KK3nfyOCjz4MQ3Y+XXvaukn/Qn2NKwHc41TgPYiarn4PV/MYva2/kbvS6 LPFvqSYQ= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AGHT+IFBjz9u5c57YZEu8MeorcMPm6BUOCBh4Jp5gkOE1eMd5wHIrbNEkucTTNlGtQhtOGq45+KIJg== X-Received: by 2002:a05:6a20:12c8:b0:1ee:c598:7a96 with SMTP id adf61e73a8af0-1f2f4cc0cafmr27333210637.16.1741052711321; Mon, 03 Mar 2025 17:45:11 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost ([2a00:79e0:2e14:7:1058:3168:66a5:183a]) by smtp.gmail.com with UTF8SMTPSA id 41be03b00d2f7-aee7dcb4611sm8948428a12.0.2025.03.03.17.45.10 (version=TLS1_3 cipher=TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256 bits=128/128); Mon, 03 Mar 2025 17:45:10 -0800 (PST) Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2025 17:45:09 -0800 From: Brian Norris To: Sascha Hauer Cc: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org, David Lin , Francesco Dolcini , Johannes Berg , kernel@pengutronix.de Subject: Re: Future of mwifiex driver Message-ID: References: Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: linux-wireless@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Hi Sascha, On Mon, Mar 03, 2025 at 12:05:26PM +0100, Sascha Hauer wrote: > I am worried about the future of the mwifiex driver. NXP has an ongoing > effort of forking the driver to support their new chips, but the forked > driver lacks support for the old chips supported by the current mwifiex > driver. [...] > I have a series here [1] doing some cleanup work which I'd still like to > get forward. [...] > [1] https://lore.kernel.org/linux-wireless/87ldwyumvq.fsf@kernel.org/ I'll apologize for that one stalling out a bit. IIRC, 11 of 12 patches looked great, but I got stuck on the "fix MAC address handling" patch, because it's a lot tougher to guarantee it doesn't break some use cases while fixing things. But really, it's probably mostly a bandwidth thing for me, as I really don't have many cycles to spend on things (and especially when it gets beyond "obvious cleanup" and requires substantial testing and/or reasoning). > Any thoughts? In no particular order: 1. even if NXP (or you, or anyone) does great work, I'm not going to be a super helpful maintainer. I simply don't have time to review and test substantial contributions. 2. I get the feeling linux-wireless may have problems like #1 in general. Johannes can't fill the entire gap Kalle left, for one. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong! Or if other excellent people have stepped up on review/maintenance.) 3. Other drivers may look somewhat similar, and yet fork for good reasons (like, firmware API revisions; or 802.11 generations; or some cross-section of both). I'm looking at rtw88/rtw89 (that I was involved with quite a bit), or ath10k/ath11k/ath12k/(have we made it to 13 yet?). So forking even with quite a bit of similarity isn't necessarily inherently wrong. 4. A key difference between #3 and mwifiex is, like you say, that mwifiex has a pretty low quality baseline. If I were maintaining it from the beginning, I probably wouldn't have accepted it. 5. I'm open to good people stepping up to fill in #1 -- i.e., include more maintainers that have a stake in larger contributions. Frankly, my only motivation here is to ensure that existing hardware supported by mwifiex doesn't get worse. So all in all, I think I probably agree with you. But speaking openly, I don't think I can be a large part of the solution here. Regards, Brian