Re: [PATCH] arm64: dts: mt7622: fix switch probe on bananapi-r64

From: arinc . unal
Date: Tue Jul 30 2024 - 07:23:00 EST


On 2024-07-30 12:41, AngeloGioacchino Del Regno wrote:
Il 01/07/24 10:15, Arınç ÜNAL ha scritto:
On 01/07/2024 11:04, Linux regression tracking (Thorsten Leemhuis) wrote:
On 01.07.24 09:44, Arınç ÜNAL wrote:
On 01/07/2024 09:16, Linux regression tracking (Thorsten Leemhuis) wrote:
[CCing the other net maintainers]

On 25.06.24 10:51, AngeloGioacchino Del Regno wrote:
Il 25/06/24 07:56, Linux regression tracking (Thorsten Leemhuis) ha
scritto:
On 17.06.24 13:08, Arınç ÜNAL wrote:
On 17/06/2024 11:33, Linux regression tracking (Thorsten Leemhuis)
wrote:
[...]
It looks more and more like we are stuck here (or was there progress
and
I just missed it?) while the 6.10 final is slowly getting closer.
Hence:

AngeloGioacchino, should we ask the net maintainers to revert
868ff5f4944aa9 ("net: dsa: mt7530-mdio: read PHY address of switch from
device tree") for now to resolve this regression? Reminder, there is
nothing wrong with that commit per se afaik, it just exposes a problem
that needs to be fixed first before it can be reapplied.

To be clear on this: I asked for the commit to be fixed such that it
guarantees
backwards compatibility with older device trees.

If no fix comes,

I haven't see any since that mail, did you? If not, I think...

then I guess that we should ask them to revert this commit
until a fix is available.

...it's time to ask them for the revert to resolve this for -rc7 (and
avoid a last minute revert), or what do you think?

This is quite frustrating. I absolutely won't consent to a revert. [...]

Reminder: try to not see a revert as a bad thing. It's just means "not
ready yet, revert and we'll try again later" -- that's actually
something Linus wrote just a few hours ago:
https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/CAHk-=wgQMOscLeeA3QXOs97xOz_CTxdqJjpC20tJ-7bUdHWtSA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/

Except it is ready and trying again is my responsibility, which means
unnecessary work for me to do. I've already got a ton of things to do.
Applying the device tree patch resolves this regression; no reverts needed.
And then there's the patch in the works by Daniel that will address all the
remaining cases outside of the reported regression.


The commit that fixes your breakage in a way that does *not* please me
(because of older devicetrees being still broken with the new driver) was
picked and it is in v6.11-rc1.

I had to do this because I value the community (in this case, the users) much
more than trying to make an arrogant developer to act in a community-friendly
manner while leaving things completely broken.

That said, remembering that we're humans and, as such, it's normal to get something
wrong during the development process, I want to remind you that:

1. A series that creates regressions is *not* good and *not* ready to be
upstreamed; and
2. As a maintainer, you have the responsibility of not breaking the kernel,
not breaking devices and not breaking currently working functionality; and
3. Devicetrees being wrong (but working) since day 0 is not an excuse to break
functionality; and
4. Blaming the one who introduced the devicetree (you're doing that, since you
are blaming the devicetree being wrong) isn't solving anything and will not
magically make your code acceptable or good; and
5. If you push a wrong commit, there's nothing to be ashamed of; and
6. If you make a mistake, you should recognize that and find a way to
make things right, that should be done for the community, not for
yourself; and
7. You shall respect the community: in this case, with your arrogant behavior
you did *not* respect the users.

P.S.: The right way of making such change is to:
1. Avoid breaking currently working devices by making sure that their DT
still works with the new driver; and
2. If breakage is unavoidable, make it so one kernel version has a fix that
works with both old and new driver, and the next version introduces the
breakage. N.2 should ideally never happen, anyway.

Let's wrap up this matter now - I don't want to spend any more word, nor time,
on this, as I really have nothing else to say.

Best regards,
Angelo

To be clear, I only became aware that my patch was picked by reading this
email. It is clear that we have different views. To that extend, all of
what you have written above can be answered to by reading what I have
already written in this thread. Therefore, I don't see any wrongdoing from
my side and invite everyone to fully read this thread to draw their own
conclusions; something you seem not to have done. And I'm not the one,
calling people names here. I can only offer my respect for hard working
people.

In my view, your behaviour of not applying a devicetree patch before a
Linux driver patch was applied, and then not replying to any arguments
whatsoever, was keeping the devicetree files hostage until your demands
were met. What I see is that, you failed as a maintainer to attend to my
points against this practice. It's no surprise that, after not having heard
back from you with an argument against my points, my patch was eventually
taken in by someone else.

Arınç