On 07/21/2017 05:13 AM, Marcel Holtmann wrote:
Hi Larry,
Once again I find myself in the awkward position of needing to submit code to
two different trees, i.e. wireless and staging.
The code in question concerns a new Realtek device, the RTL8822BE. The device
is already shipping, and Realtek would like it to be available in kernel 3.14.
As it consists of ~120,000 new lines of code, I have assured Realtek that 3.14
would not be possible, at least in the wireless tree. What I plan to do is
submit the changes in the existing drivers through wireless, and the three
totally new drivers through staging. My expectation is that this code would
live for a relatively short time there, but going that route would give time
for the code to be reviewed properly, but still be available in a kernel
driver. All of the new code will be available in a GitHub repo maintained by
Realtek for those users whose distros do not configure anything in staging.
For my part, I will push the wireless tree material as fast as I can and hope
there is time available near the end of the 4.13-rcX sequence for the material
to reach 4.14-rc1.
I really do not understand the need for staging if there is already active
cleanup and submission to wireless-drivers happening. I find it also unfair to
others who submit code to linux-wireless and have it reviewed there before it
gets merged.
Also the faster it gets into wireless-drivers the faster it can be available
via linux-backports. Seems many companies have used linux-backports
successfully to deal with older kernel versions.
The part that is being submitted to wireless drivers is only a small part of the
entire effort.
Beyond that is the new driver with roughly 120,000 lines of code that have not
yet been seen by any reviewers. My experience says that there is no way that
this much new code will be reviewed and approved in a month. Including
everything in wireless would likely take until 4.15 or 4.16.
Larry
