Re: [PATCH v8 0/6] Add Fieldbus subsystem + support HMS Profinet card

[Greg KH]

On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 01:02:34PM -0400, Sven Van Asbroeck wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 8, 2019 at 9:14 AM Greg KH <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Well, who wants this code?  Who uses it?  Find those people and get them
> > to review it.  If no one wants it or uses it, that kind of implies that
> > it's not needed :)
> 
> We have customers who (will) talk to this ABI from userspace, but they are
> not 'Linux-y' enough to come to the mailing list and meaningfully review
> the userspace ABI.
> 
> IMHO the current reality of Fieldbus on Linux is companies rolling their own
> proprietary out-of-tree interfaces and drivers. They do this partly because
> there is no existing community or infrastructure. So there is no incentive
> to be involved with mainline, which could also explain why no-one is commenting
> on this Fieldbus ABI.
> 
> Chicken-and-egg problem ?
> 
> Greg, could I convince you to take this Fieldbus subsystem in drivers/staging?
> Perhaps its presence may kickstart or seed a Linux Fieldbus community.
> Being in staging/ also means that we can tweak the userspace ABI to our
> heart's content if more people/requirements come in.
> 
> If there's been no meaningful activity in, say, one year from now, you may
> decide to send this whole subsystem to /dev/null.

That sounds like a good plan, I'll take that.  Want to respin the
patches with the code in drivers/staging/ and I'll be glad to queue them
up after 5.1-rc1 is out.

thanks,

greg k-h