Re: [PATCH v2] drm/i2c: tda998x: Change the compatible strings

From: Sebastian Hesselbarth
Date: Sun Mar 23 2014 - 18:45:18 EST


On 03/23/2014 09:03 PM, Russell King - ARM Linux wrote:
On Sun, Mar 23, 2014 at 07:12:05PM +0100, Sebastian Hesselbarth wrote:
On 03/23/2014 11:19 AM, Jean-Francois Moine wrote:
On Fri, 21 Mar 2014 14:37:52 +0100
Sebastian Hesselbarth <sebastian.hesselbarth@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Required properties;
- - compatible: must be "nxp,tda998x"
+ - compatible: may be "nxp,tda9989", "nxp,tda19988" or "nxp,tda19989"

There is a "DT is ABI" policy and although there is no mainline Linux
user of current compatible, the correct way would be to deprecate
"nxp,tda998x" and introduce new compatibles.

Pratically, what is this way?

Currently, there is no effective way to deprecate a binding or
compatible. You just add the one(s) that are more sensible and
you mark the old one as DEPRECATED by simply writing it in the
binding doc.

The driver should support the old binding at least for a while.

It doesn't need to - it's only been in development trees so far, and
never been in a mainline full release. Until it does, the binding
does not become stable.

Ok, I see. Thanks for the clarification. A note about it would
have been nice though. Anyway, sorry for the noise.

Sebastian

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