Re: how to allow board writers to customize driver behavior (watchdog here)

[Paul Mundt <lethal@linux-sh.org>]

On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 09:29:51AM -0400, Robin Getz wrote:
> On Thu 24 May 2007 01:23, Paul Mundt pondered:
> > On Thu, May 24, 2007 at 12:21:47AM -0400, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> > > is this completely bad mojo ?  is there some other mechanism that
> > > provides what i want and i just dont know about it ?  or do i just
> > > make people change the driver to fit their application, thus throwing
> > > out the idea of keeping all board-specific details in just the boards
> > > file ...
> > 
> > It sounds like your constraining your driver based on terminology.
> > Watchdogs on most embedded platforms support either a 'reset' mode or
> > otherwise act as periodic timers, trying to push both of these
> > functionalities in to a watchdog driver is rather pointless.
> > CONFIG_WATCHDOG implies 'reset' mode by definition.
> 
> I understand what you mean - typically - most people think of watchdog == 
> reset.
> 
No, not typically. This is _precisely_ what CONFIG_WATCHDOG means, and
how the entire set of drivers underneath it behave.

> But, calling it a periodic timer, and servicing it with the watchdog user 
> space demon is even more confusing - isn't it?
> 
Calling it a periodic timer when its in periodic timer mode makes sense.
Why you would want to interface that with a userspace watchdog daemon is
beyond me, they're conceptually unrelated.

Please read my original mail on the subject. I'm not advocating hiding a
clocksource somewhere in the depths of CONFIG_WATCHDOG, they're
completely unrelated.