Re: [PATCH] MAINTAINERS: Add Helge as fbdev maintainer

[Daniel Vetter]

On Mon, Jan 17, 2022 at 1:16 PM Helge Deller <deller@xxxxxx> wrote:
>
> Hello Daniel,
>
> On 1/17/22 11:02, Daniel Vetter wrote:
> > Hi Helge
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 14, 2022 at 7:18 PM Helge Deller <deller@xxxxxx> wrote:
> >>
> >> The fbdev layer is orphaned, but seems to need some care.
> >> So I'd like to step up as new maintainer.
> >>
> >> Signed-off-by: Helge Deller <deller@xxxxxx>
> >>
> >> diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS
> >> index 5d0cd537803a..ce47dbc467cc 100644
> >> --- a/MAINTAINERS
> >> +++ b/MAINTAINERS
> >> @@ -7583,11 +7583,12 @@ W:      http://floatingpoint.sourceforge.net/emulator/index.html
> >>  F:     arch/x86/math-emu/
> >>
> >>  FRAMEBUFFER LAYER
> >> -L:     dri-devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> +M:     Helge Deller <deller@xxxxxx>
> >>  L:     linux-fbdev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >> -S:     Orphan
> >
> > Maybe don't rush maintainer changes in over the w/e without even bothering
> > to get any input from the people who've been maintaining it before.
> >
> > Because the status isn't entirely correct, fbdev core code and fbcon and
> > all that has been maintained, but in bugfixes only mode. And there's very
> > solid&important reasons to keep merging these patches through a drm tree,
> > because that's where all the driver development happens, and hence also
> > all the testing (e.g. the drm test suite has some fbdev tests - the only
> > automated ones that exist to my knowledge - and we run them in CI). So
> > moving that into an obscure new tree which isn't even in linux-next yet is
> > no good at all.
> >
> > Now fbdev driver bugfixes is indeed practically orphaned and I very much
> > welcome anyone stepping up for that, but the simplest approach there would
> > be to just get drm-misc commit rights and push the oddball bugfix in there
> > directly. But also if you want to do your own pull requests to Linus for
> > that I don't care and there's really no interference I think, so
> > whatever floats.
> >
> > But any code that is relevant for drm drivers really needs to go in through
> > drm trees, nothing else makes much sense.
> >
> > I guess you're first action as newly minted fbdev maintainer is going to be to
> > clean up the confusion you just created.
>
> Most of my machines depend on a working fbdev layer since drm isn't (and probably
> -due to technical requirements of DRM- won't be) available for those.
> So, since the fbdev drivers were marked orphaned, I decided to step up as maintainer.
>
> I see your point that at least the fbdev core code and fbcon are shared between DRM and fbdev.
> For me it's really not important to drive any patches through a seperate tree, so
> I'd be happy to join the drm-misc tree if you feel it's necessary. (By the way,
> adding my tree to for-next was on my todo list...)
>
> What's important for me though is, to keep fbdev actively maintained, which means:
> a) to get fixes which were posted to fbdev mailing list applied if they are useful & correct,

Yeah it'd be great if we have that, for a while Bart took care of
these, but had to step down again. drm-misc is maintained with the dim
scrip suite, which comes with docs and bash completion and everything.
Good starting pointer is here:

https://drm.pages.freedesktop.org/maintainer-tools/getting-started.html

Process for getting commit rights is documented here:

https://drm.pages.freedesktop.org/maintainer-tools/commit-access.html#drm-misc

But there's a pile more. I think once we've set that up and got it
going we can look at the bigger items. Some of them are fairly
low-hanging fruit, but the past 5+ years absolutely no one bothered to
step up and sort them out. Other problem areas in fbdev are extremely
hard to fix properly, without only doing minimal security-fixes only
support, so fair warning there. I think a good starting point would be
to read the patches and discussions for some of the things you've
reverted in your tree.

Anyway I hope this gets you started, and hopefully after a minor
detour: Welcome to dri-devel, we're happy to take any help we can get,
there's lots to do!

Cheers, Daniel

> b) to include new drivers (for old hardware) if they arrive (probably happens rarely but there can be).
>    I know of at least one driver which won't be able to support DRM....
>    Of course, if the hardware is capable to support DRM, it should be written for DRM and not applied for fbdev.
> c) reintroduce the state where fbcon is fast on fbdev. This is important for non-DRM machines,
>    either when run on native hardware or in an emulator.
> d) not break DRM development
>
> Especially regarding c) I complained in [1] and got no feedback. I really would like to
> understand where the actual problems were and what's necessary to fix them.
>
> Helge
>
> [1] https://lore.kernel.org/r/feea8303-2b83-fc36-972c-4fc8ad723bde@xxxxxx



-- 
Daniel Vetter
Software Engineer, Intel Corporation
http://blog.ffwll.ch