Re: [PATCH 1/5] regulator: dt-bindings: Add regulator-boot-force-off property

[Krzysztof Kozlowski]

On 21/10/2026 19:11, Paul Louvel wrote:
> On Wed Oct 21, 2026 at 7:01 PM CEST, Conor Dooley wrote:
>>> +  regulator-boot-force-off:
>>> +    description: a regulator may be enabled by default when the system powers up.
>>> +      A consumer may query the regulator's state during boot and disable it if
>>> +      it is already enabled, potentially resulting in an unbalanced disable
>>> +      operation. This property ensures that the regulator is disabled at boot,
>>> +      regardless of its previous state.
>>
>> To be honest, I'm not sure how the commentary about querying the state
>> or being unbalanced is relevant to the description - that sounds like
>> something specific to the linux regulator framework?
> 
> Yes it is. Maybe I miss something, does this binding is used outside linux ?
> 
>>
>> In fact, I'm not sure why this is needed at all? Can't you just change
>> the software so that it is okay to disable a regulator that has an
>> explicit enable count of zero?
>>
> 
> Do you mean by calling regulator_force_disable() instead ? I thinked about that
> but I don't think this is ideal.
> Or just patch the core to allow unbalanced disable downstream ?
> My intent was to provide an upstream solution to the problem I described in the
> cover letter.

Cover letter does not end up in Git history often, so this patch needs
rationale. Honestly this looks like duplicating regulator-boot-on
property in a reversed way, while also focusing on Linux implementation.
And even when considering Linux implementation, the unused regulators
ARE turned off, thus there is no need to force them off.

Best regards,
Krzysztof