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

[Mike Frysinger]

On Fri, Oct 28, 2011 at 01:09, Scott Wood wrote:
> 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.

i'd submit that the boards in the tree are a fairly good sampling of
what people actually deploy.  by virtue of no default board config
enabling this, it's most likely that no user does either.

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

certainly
-mike