[U-Boot] ARM: OMAP3/4: proposal: Cleanup MUX

[Nishanth Menon]

Steve Sakoman wrote, on 11/05/2010 10:47 PM:
> While I understand that you are frustrated with the slow movement in
> getting the kernel mux cleaned up, I really can't support deliberately
> breaking systems to force the issue.
>
> I don't think it does end users any service to have a u-boot "upgrade"
> break their systems.  In the end, they are the ones who will be hurt
> and u-boot will get the blame for causing the breakage.
>
> I'd rather see us put the energy into helping get the kernel in shape.
In 2009 July[1], I raised the concern for OMAP3. at that point the fact 
was we did not have a clean mux framework in kernel. ok great, 2010 Nov 
now, there is *already* a framework for doing it in kernel upstream 
today. What rationale is there for OMAP3 beagleboard [1] still do muxing 
as it does today - we as a community are lazy to clean up our code? What 
happend as a result? There are linux-products out there which dont use 
u-boot as bootloader and development non-linux OS's out there which use 
u-boot as a bootloader - in the case of the linux-products, surprises 
were found for the upstream kernel depending on u-boot for their muxes 
and development-OSes found the same mistake when they switched to their 
native bootloaders at a later point.

Why should OMAP4 mux framework not move forward despite two rounds of 
RFC patches posted[3]? I am not asking this to be done tomorrow, I am 
asking our community for a deadline - If v2010.12 is too close, fine, 
then lets schedule it for after v2011.03 tag for example -> is'nt 4 
months not good enough to get an already existing mux framework upstream 
in kernel.org for OMAP4? or should OMAP4 products go through the same 
experience of OMAP3?

Conceptually it is simple - a software does just what it is supposed to 
do - u-boot for OMAP today does way more than it's charter and I 
personally find it obnoxious! All I am saying is this: we all agree this 
is messed up, I have an itch, I am willing to do the cleanup as well, 
just tell me when it is right to do it, I just don't want to deal with 
crappy code anymore!

Ref:
[1] http://www.mail-archive.com/u-boot@lists.denx.de/msg17423.html
[2] 
http://git.denx.de/?p=u-boot.git;a=blob;f=board/ti/beagle/beagle.h;h=ec0da6d745477437c1c776db7929690e1e568437;hb=HEAD
[3] http://marc.info/?l=linux-omap&m=128752700004693&w=2

-- 
Regards,
Nishanth Menon