Re: [RFC 2/5] i3c: Add core I3C infrastructure

Andrew F. Davis
2017-08-01T16:47:54Z

On 07/31/2017 04:42 PM, Wolfram Sang wrote:
>
>> Actually, that's the first option I considered, but I3C and I2C are
>> really different. I'm not talking about the physical layer here, but
>> the way the bus has to be handled by the software layer. Actually, I
>> thing the I3C bus is philosophically closer to auto-discoverable busses
>> like USB than I2C or SPI.
>
> Acked-by: Wolfram Sang <wsa@the-dreams.de>
>
>> Of course, I can move all the code in drivers/i2c/, but that won't
>> change the fact that I3C and I2C busses are completely different
>> with little to share between them.
>
> That wouldn't make sense.
>
>> To me, the I2C backward compatibility is just a nice feature that was
>> added to help people smoothly transition from mixed I3C busses with
>> both I2C and I3C devices connected to it (I2C devices being here
>> when no (affordable) equivalent exist in the I3C world) to pure I3C
>> busses with only I3C devices connected to it.
>
> Yeah, and it is still to be seen how good this really works. Devices
> which do clock stretching are out of the question. Probably everything
> which needs an interrupt as well?
>

I'm surprised they didn't allow for slave clock stretching when
communicating with a legacy i2c device, it will prohibit use of a rather
large class of devices. :(

As for interrupts you are always free to wire up an out-of-band
interrupt like before. :)

>> This being said, I'd be happy if you prove me wrong and propose a
>> solution that allows us to extend the I2C framework to support I3C
>> without to much pain ;-).
>
> From all I know, I don't see that coming.
>