From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Jeff Garzik Subject: Re: patch tulip-natsemi-dp83840a-phy-fix.patch added to -mm tree Date: Fri, 20 May 2005 14:58:58 -0400 Message-ID: <428E3372.403@pobox.com> References: <200505101955.j4AJtX9x032464@shell0.pdx.osdl.net> <42881C58.40001@pobox.com> <20050516050843.GA20107@colo.lackof.org> <4288CE51.1050703@pobox.com> <20050516222612.GD9282@colo.lackof.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: T-Bone@parisc-linux.org, varenet@parisc-linux.org, Linux Kernel , Netdev Return-path: To: Grant Grundler , akpm@osdl.org In-Reply-To: <20050516222612.GD9282@colo.lackof.org> Sender: netdev-bounce@oss.sgi.com Errors-to: netdev-bounce@oss.sgi.com List-Id: netdev.vger.kernel.org Grant Grundler wrote: > After three years of using/maintaining the (trivial) tulip patch > in parisc-linux tree (and shipped with RH/SuSe ia64 releases), > I don't recall anyone complaining that udelays in tulip phy reset > caused them problems. Sorry, I'm unmotivated to revisit this. > Convince someone else to make tulip to use workqueues and I'll > resubmit a clean patch on top of that for the phy init sequences. Long delays are unacceptable in new drivers, and we are working to remove them from older drivers. Lack of complaints is irrelevant -- its a design requirement of all drivers. Ingo and the real-time crowd are fighting against every delay, because every delay causes a spin, a blip in latency, an increase in CPU usage, and a complete stoppage of ALL work on a uniprocessor machine. Your patch is not a special case. We have been communicating this message on udelay/mdelay for -years-. All your patch [as-is] does is cause more work for someone else. This also presents a problem that Andrew points out on occasion: what happens when a patch is useful, but the patch author isn't (for whatever reason) doing the legwork necessary to get it into the mainline kernel? We certainly DON'T want to lose this patch, as the changes are useful. Jeff