[U-Boot] [PATCH v3 01/11] dm: serial: Update binding for PL01x serial UART

[Rob Herring]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2015 at 10:59 AM, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
> Hi Linus,
>
> On 11 August 2015 at 07:00, Linus Walleij <linus.walleij at linaro.org> wrote:
>> On Fri, Aug 7, 2015 at 3:42 PM, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
>>
>>> This binding differs from that of Linux. Update it and change existing
>>> users.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
>> (...)
>>>  doc/device-tree-bindings/serial/pl01x.txt | 55 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---
>>
>> So why does U-Boot have its own copy of any bindings at all?
>>
>> This is forking the ontology of who gets to define bindings I fear.
>> It's a bit like have two bibles both claiming to be the word of god.
>> (OK maybe a hyperbolic statement, but you see what I mean.)
>>
>> Can't we just have the bindings in the Linux kernel tree please?

Yes, please!

> Is there any plan to move them out of Linux and put them in a separate place?

There is a tree generated from the kernel tree which is only bindings
and dts files[1]. The path in for changes though is still thru the
kernel.

Actually splitting it out to an independent repo will require someone
stepping up to do that. Perhaps as an intermediate step, we could take
patches against the generated tree, apply path fixups, and merge thru
the kernel tree.

> We should make an effort to sync the device tree files with Linux periodically.
>
> I quite like having the bindings in U-Boot since it makes people think
> about what they are adding. Are you worried that the bindings in
> U-Boot might evolve separately? Certainly there has been some of that.

Certainly, having driver binding related changes decoupled from
binding documentation makes things harder to review.

> However I recently sent a series to add a few things for Raspberry Pi
> ("arm: rpi: Device tree modifications for U-Boot") and I don't yet see
> a willingness to add what some see as 'U-Boot things' to the binding.
> How do we address that?

I went and looked at it. I don't have a big problem with "u-boot,?" in
principle, but like any linux,? property they are a red flag and get
extra scrutiny. You didn't explain what the binding was for, so I've
got no idea on the one in question.

Rob


[1] http://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/devicetree/devicetree-rebasing.git