RE: [PATCH misc v2 2/2] misc: Add Renesas Synchronization Management Unit (SMU) support

[Min Li]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Greg KH <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: September 16, 2021 12:05 PM
> To: Min Li <min.li.xe@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Cc: arnd@xxxxxxxx; derek.kiernan@xxxxxxxxxx; dragan.cvetic@xxxxxxxxxx;
> linux-kernel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; lee.jones@xxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [PATCH misc v2 2/2] misc: Add Renesas Synchronization
> Management Unit (SMU) support
> 
> On Thu, Sep 16, 2021 at 03:54:52PM +0000, Min Li wrote:
> > >
> > > Please put that link in the changelog comment and in the .c code as
> > > well so that people know where to find it.
> > >
> > > > >
> > > > > Why is this new api not a standard one?
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > > There is no actual standard for the GNSS assisted partial timing
> > > > support (APTS) In terms of Linux kernel API
> > >
> > > Then make one!  :)
> >
> > Yes it is on our roadmap to do that for next release
> 
> Please do it for this kernel api, otherwise you have to support this for the
> next 20+ years as-is :(
> 

In that case, I would have to get back to you in a few months. If you are rejecting this
change due to this reason. Please tell me explicitly so that I can copy paste to my manager
and that would be it. Thanks 

> > > Why not just do this all from userspace then?  You can have spi/i2c
> > > userspace code, right?  Why does this have to be a kernel driver?
> > >
> > We used to do everything in userspace. But since PHC (ptp hardware
> > clock) came along, we decided to move the driver part to kernel. Please
> take a look at drivers/ptp/ptp_clockmatrix.c for reference.
> > Recently, we have some functions like APTS that doesn't belong to PTP
> > or anything else so we have to split those functions to RSMU misc driver
> and i2c/spi bus accesses to RSMU MFD driver.
> 
> I still do not understand why this has to be a kernel driver, sorry.
> What exactly forces it to be that way?
> 
That is our management decision since everyone is trying to move their driver to Linux kernel
to contribute so that we don't have to release the driver to each customer separately. The customer
can just grab the driver from linux