On Aug 21, 2007, at 11:11 AM, Phil Terry wrote: > On Tue, 2007-08-21 at 17:14 +0200, Segher Boessenkool wrote: >>> It's not a question of indivudual files being copied over - >>> things are >>> done differently in arch/powerpc. Things are gradually being ported >>> over to arch/powerpc as people get the time - that's why arch/ppc >>> isn't gone yet. >> >> And to be blunt, one of the points of arch/powerpc vs. arch/ppc is >> to actually leave behind some stuff. "If no one ports it, no one >> wants it". > > So am I alone in getting a mixed message from "Linux community" to > "embedded community"? > > On the one hand we have people like GKH telling embedded people to > stop > being private company/device specific forks but to submit their > hardware > to the tree where it will be supported "for free" by the kernel > hackers, > saving us the "chore" of supporting "our" code through all the kernel > changes and forever chasing it. > > On the other hand we have people telling us that because we are too > lazy > to support "our" code the kernel guys aren't going to pull it forward > for us.
There is clearly a balance here. While I don't think too many people are going to disagree with GKH intent, there is a practicality about it. If no kernel hacker has access to a particular board that was supported in arch/ppc and no one seems to care about it than it seems to be a candidate to not move forward. > So in fact people 3rd party people like me are in between real > problems, > we base our code on say a Freescale chip, who submit to the kernel to > save their support issues and we base our code on that. Now, the > Freescale guys are too busy porting their "latest" chips across the > PPC/Powerpc divide to port the "old" stuff so it gets "left behind". > That old stuff is still selling and the people who based code on it > had > the expectation that the code would continue to be supported. So > now I'm > being told not only to "port my stuff or lose it" but now also port > freescale's stuff or lose it. If there is some specific freescale board/chip that is being left behind that you're concerned about please let me know. > And then we get beaten up because we "stayed" with "ancient stuff" > like > 2.6.21!!! > > Not picking on Freescale, or Segher, just trying to wave the flag, > lots > of people want it, they are just not all in a position to save it > because we "embedded" people are by nature a fractured community of > niche players with products that don't turn over with out customers > every six months, some people will want to buy a product for years... > > And yes I do understand the "Linux kernel hackers are nothing more > than > a group of diverse people from many companies so why is embedded any > different" argument, I just don't have an answer right now other > than it > is. I'd ask you to mention specific boards/chip/functionality rather than generic statements so we can actual be aware of things we're forgetting or are important to people that we are not aware of. The fact that arch/ppc is 'dead' has been posted on the lists numerous times to give people the opportunity to let us all know what's important to people. - k _______________________________________________ Linuxppc-dev mailing list Linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org https://ozlabs.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxppc-dev
