[U-Boot] [PATCH v2 6/6] net: Export auto_load, use it in rarp

[Scott Wood]

On 10/27/2011 05:40 PM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 00:24, Simon Glass wrote:
>> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
>>> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 18:24, Simon Glass wrote:
>>>> This also fixes an incorrect call to TftpStart() which was never seen
>>>> since apparently no boards enable rarp.
>>>
>>> i wonder if we shouldn't just drop rarp then if no one actually uses it ...
>>
>> Well that's the definition of dead code, but of course there may be
>> thousands of boards out there that use it, where the code is not
>> upstream. I suppose we could take the code out and see if anyone
>> notices :-) It is at least in a separate file and not built unless
>> requested.
> 
> i think our (reasonable) position is that if no one is using it, and
> no one is noticing when it breaks, then we should simply drop it.  if
> out of tree boards cared, they'd be in tree.

For features like this that are user-enableable, rather than e.g. a
board code dependency, it's users that care, not boards.  I don't think
we're asking people to submit a variant "board" config with their own
personal preferences/requirements, if they differ from the board
maintainer's.  Unfortunately U-Boot lacks the ability to do an
"allyesconfig" to at least build-test such features.

Of course, if it's actually been broken for a while, that suggests that
the users don't care either. :-)  Or perhaps are running older versions,
but might upgrade at some point.

It's probably best to follow the normal feature removal process to see
if anyone's interested in maintaining it, before removing it.

-Scott