[linux-cirrus] Re: 2.6 kernel status, love letters from cirrus

  • From: NZG <ngustavson@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: linux-cirrus@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2007 10:24:38 -0600

Thank your for all your work and help Buytenhek.

Currently I'm using your kernel, see no reason to use Cirrus.
Your code seems to work better, and to be better supported.
It's a shame they have adopted this attitude.

Has the discontig mem patch I mentioned earlier been encorporated into 2.6.20?
I posted my modified version to OE, but if the mainstreams fixed it they 
should probably just adopt that eh?

NZG

On Monday 12 February 2007 6:52 am, Lennert Buytenhek wrote:
> Hi,
>
> In mainline kernels, there is now support for port F GPIO interrupts,
> and support for IRQT_NOEDGE (PCMCIA wants this or it gets into an IRQ
> storm when you plug in a card.)
>
> I hacked a bit on the ep93xx PATA libata driver (can be found in my svn
> tree.)  It now works again on recent kernels, supports having a slave
> device, and gets the PIO0 timings right, but still downgrades all PIO
> modes to PIO0 -- which is still better than losing your data. :-)
>
> Note that the ATA stuff still needs work, as libata assumes that all
> ATA hardware has the task file registers accessible via MMIO or I/O,
> which doesn't hold on the ep93xx (have to generate read/write pulses
> by hand), and I hacked around that in a pretty ugly way.  (Ideally,
> it needs a third access option, ATA_FLAG_FITH or somesuch.)
>
> Oh, current 2.6 head also has a libata fix that properly detects PIO
> modes on old CompactFlash cards.
>
> I also redid the I2C bus driver so that it allows sharing the EECLK
> and EEDAT pins with other agents.  This is necessary for at least one
> ep93xx board where the PCMCIA voltage switcher (TPS2206) hangs off
> the I2C pins but does not follow the I2C protocol.  (This work can
> also be found in my SVN tree.)
>
> I also took the existing PCMCIA bits from an ep93xx tree, forward
> ported that, and submitted it to the pcmcia mailing list for possible
> inclusion.
>
>
> Some of you will know that I've been talking to Cirrus for a while
> regarding how to reconcile their tree with the upstream 2.6 tree.
>
> I've spent a lot of time explaining the advantages of working with
> the community, I've explained them why their code doesn't really have
> a chance to get merged upstream in its current state, and what they
> should change to make upstream merging possible.  They thanked me
> on more than one occasion for my all my help, and we were discussing
> some form of compensation for my efforts.
>
> A couple of days ago this all changed, when they suddenly decided that
> all the work I had already done for them would no longer require any
> form of compensation, and that the best way forward would be if I give
> up maintenance of the Linux ep93xx port so that they can delete all
> kernel code that was not written by Cirrus employees (which would
> probably mean every single line..) and shove in their ep93xx tree
> verbatim, and reject all future contributions from non-Cirrus employees.
>
> This is what they wrote:
>
>       I think we will just maintain our own port for the 93xx.  I
>       am not going to want to support code not written by Cirrus
>       Logic.  So I give you kuddos for getting to the port first,
>       but using GIT makes it easy to remove your work and add ours.
>       So since we are current with the linux tree and have all
>       periferals supported we will just keep supplying a patch for
>       the lastest kernel.
>
>       It is just a matter of splitting hairs on your coding verses
>       ours, and I dont want to have to bother with it, as I'm sure
>       you wont either.  Nobody here will pay you to maintain our
>       code for us, or for that matter wants you to, so we will
>       maintain a current git tree and allow our customers to use
>       that and contribute to our official port.  You are more than
>       welcome to use our code and add it to the official port, but
>       we will only support our code for our customers.  And since
>       I dont want to have to ask the maintainers to give us the port
>       maintenece I will leave it to you.  Good luck!
>
>
> cheers,
> Lennert

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. linux-cirrus
  3. Archive
  4. 02-2007