From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1756827Ab1GDJXb (ORCPT ); Mon, 4 Jul 2011 05:23:31 -0400 Received: from newsmtp5.atmel.com ([204.2.163.5]:25782 "EHLO sjogate2.atmel.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756416Ab1GDJXb (ORCPT ); Mon, 4 Jul 2011 05:23:31 -0400 Message-ID: <4E118679.4090908@atmel.com> Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2011 11:23:05 +0200 From: Nicolas Ferre Organization: atmel User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr; rv:1.9.2.18) Gecko/20110616 Lightning/1.0b2 Thunderbird/3.1.11 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Arnd Bergmann , balbi@ti.com CC: linux-arm-kernel@lists.infradead.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, plagnioj@jcrosoft.com, avictor.za@gmail.com Subject: Re: [PATCH] AT91: add AT91SAM9X5 dummy configuration variable References: <1309260927-11411-1-git-send-email-nicolas.ferre@atmel.com> <20110628122650.GK2612@legolas.emea.dhcp.ti.com> <4E0B43BA.803@atmel.com> <201107021149.41703.arnd@arndb.de> In-Reply-To: <201107021149.41703.arnd@arndb.de> X-Enigmail-Version: 1.1.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Le 02/07/2011 11:49, Arnd Bergmann : > On Wednesday 29 June 2011 17:24:42 Nicolas Ferre wrote: >>> Here are a few questions: >>> i) The drivers you're willing to send, are those for Atmel's IPs or are >>> the IPs sourced from some other company ? >>> ii) Even if they are Atmel-specific, do you see the possibility of Atmel >>> licensing them ? >>> iii) Does your driver current depend on asm/ or mach/ headers ? >>> iv) Is there a generic header which you could use instead of asm/ mach/ ? >> >> I just want to hide drivers that are not relevant for others: I have the feeling >> that it is a good practice. This tiny patch will ease this during my publication >> flow. Do you seriously care? > > I think Felipe is right on this one, but both views are common in the kernel > today: Some people want dependencies to mean "you cannot build this driver > unless the dependencies are fulfilled", others like them more broadly to > mean "there is no point to ever enable this driver because I know you won't > need it". > > Both views are understandable, but I favor the first one because > > * it's the more common view these days and we should be consistent > > * it exposes drivers to more build testing. If something changes in > the kernel that exposes new warnings in your driver or causes a > build error, that is more likely to get fixed when more people > find it by doing allyesconfig or randconfig builds. > > * If there is an actual build dependency between the driver and the > platform that causes you to need the explicit Kconfig depends, that > is in many cases a hint that the driver author is doing something > wrong, like hardcoding MMIO addresses or referencing custom > symbols exported by the platform. > > I don't think anyone really objects your patch to introduce the extra > Kconfig symbol, but I'd hope that we can eventually get a consensus > on the idea that you shouldn't use Kconfig dependencies based on > whether a driver is relevant or not. Arnd, Felipe, You have convinced me. But I will have to remove the other dependencies that I mentioned before in the thread. We can drop this patch. Bye, -- Nicolas Ferre