Re: [PATCH 1/2] staging: net: wireless: add ESP8089 WiFi driver

From: Kalle Valo
Date: Tue Jul 25 2017 - 04:34:56 EST


(adding linux-wireless)

Quentin Schulz <quentin.schulz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Hi Marcel,
>
> On 21/07/2017 18:52, Marcel Holtmann wrote:
>> Hi Quentin,
>>
>>>>> The Espressif ESP8089 WiFi chips can be often found in cheap tablets.
>>>>> There is one in A23 Polaroid tablets for example.
>>>>>
>>>>> The chip is often embedded as an eMMC SDIO device.
>>>>>
>>>>> The code was taken from an out-of-tree repository and has seen a first
>>>>> pass in the cleanup process.
>>>>>
>>>>> At the moment, there is no publicly available datasheet for this chip.
>>>>>
>>>>> Cc: Hans de Goede <hdegoede@xxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>> Cc: Icenowy Zheng <icenowy@xxxxxxxx>
>>>>> Signed-off-by: Quentin Schulz <quentin.schulz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>
>>>> Staging drivers need a TODO file that lists what has to be done to the
>>>> code to get it out of staging. Why not just take a day or so and fix up
>>>> the remaining issues and get it into the "real" part of the kernel
>>>> correctly?
>>>>
>>>
>>> OK, I'll work on a TODO list. Is there anything else I should know about
>>> staging drivers so I can address everything at the same time?
>>>
>>> From a driver that has already been cleaned up a bit by Icenowy and
>>> Hans, it took me between 10 and 15 working days to this step, which I
>>> estimate to be around 50% of total clean up (and we're only speaking
>>> about coding style and dead code mainly, nothing about a bit of code
>>> review, code robustness...). I find the code not really easy to follow
>>> (might be because I'm a beginner in the subsystem as well).
>>>
>>> I might not be the most efficient person in cleaning up drivers but I'm
>>> pretty sure this isn't a one day cleanup. (Would be happy to be proven
>>> otherwise :) ), else I would have done it as you suggest.
>>
>> even if it takes you 1 month to clean it up, get it reviewed on
>> linux-wireless and target wireless-drivers instead of staging. When I
>> had a brief a look at your patch, it didn't look like staging
>> material to me.

I did only a 30 sec review (right now no time for proper review because
I have quite a lot of catching up after vacation) but based on what I
saw the driver looks promising. So I agree with Marcel, you should try
to submit this via linux-wireless first and only use staging as the last
resort.

> We don't have a client supporting this effort and I don't think the
> company I work for would support this effort (maybe it would, but
> definitely spread over a long long period), so we're talking about 10-15
> working days spread over my free time/week-end, that isn't for in one
> month :) I could use help for sure on this driver, that's why I posted
> it in staging.
>
> I've done the cleanup on a per-file basis so maybe you looked at one of
> the cleaned up files?
>
> Just to be sure, you're telling me that I should post it as is on
> linux-wireless and then work with the reviews? Or are you telling me to
> take "1 month to clean it up" and then post it on linux-wireless?

I recommend to post the patch to linux-wireless now and see what
comments you get. Then I can also when a proper review and have better
guidance.

--
Kalle Valo