Re: [PATCH] staging/octeon: Mark Ethernet driver as BROKEN

From: Greg Kroah-Hartman
Date: Mon Dec 02 2019 - 13:15:09 EST


On Mon, Dec 02, 2019 at 09:36:20AM -0800, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 02, 2019 at 05:52:31PM +0100, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > On Mon, Dec 02, 2019 at 06:18:36AM -0800, Guenter Roeck wrote:
> > > The code doesn't compile due to incompatible pointer errors such as
> > >
> > > drivers/staging/octeon/ethernet-tx.c:649:50: error:
> > > passing argument 1 of 'cvmx_wqe_get_grp' from incompatible pointer type
> > >
> > > This is due to mixing, for example, cvmx_wqe_t with 'struct cvmx_wqe'.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, one can not just revert the primary offending commit, as doing so
> > > results in secondary errors. This is made worse by the fact that the "removed"
> > > typedefs still exist and are used widely outside the staging directory,
> > > making the entire set of "remove typedef" changes pointless and wrong.
> >
> > Ugh, sorry about that.
> >
> > > Reflect reality and mark the driver as BROKEN.
> >
> > Should I just delete this thing? No one seems to be using it and there
> > is no move to get it out of staging at all.
> >
> > Will anyone actually miss it? It can always come back of someone
> > does...
> >
>
> All it does is causing trouble and misguided attempts to clean it up.
> If anything, the whole thing goes into the wrong direction (declare a
> complete set of dummy functions just to be able to build the driver
> with COMPILE_TEST ? Seriously ?).
>
> I second the motion to drop it. This has been in staging for 10 years.
> Don't we have some kind of time limit for code in staging ? If not,
> should we ? If anyone really needs it, that person or group should
> really invest the time to get it out of staging for good.

10 years? Ugh, yes, it's time to drop the thing, I'll do so after -rc1
is out.

thanks,

greg k-h