[U-Boot] [PATCH v4] powerpc: Restore core of mpc8xx

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Tom,

In message <20170623140934.GD27196 at bill-the-cat> you wrote:
> 
> Since he addressed a number of the comments from the previous
> discussions, it would be helpful to point out the things that were
> overlooked, thanks!

I thought this should be clear from the previous discussion.  The
major concern is that this patch brings back a large amount of ccode
that will obviously remain unfixed, untested and unmaintained.  Just
to list a few examples:

arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc8xx/bedbug_860.c
arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc8xx/kgdb.S
arch/powerpc/cpu/mpc8xx/video.c
drivers/block/sil680.c
drivers/pcmcia/mpc8xx_pcmcia.c
drivers/usb/gadget/mpc8xx_udc.c
examples/standalone/test_burst.*
examples/standalone/timer.c
post/cpu/mpc8xx/usb.c (probably even post/cpu/mpc8xx/*)

etc.

Also, directory hierarchy should be fixed for a number of drivers.

It is IMO wrong to plan for a remove - revert - remove sequence.

This may be the way how Christophe actually starts developing his
patches.  As he mentioned, it might be useful for history reasons.
But as I also explained before, going this route is a guarantee to
keep a ton of unused, untested and unmaintained code which will not
be removed as Christophe does not understand what it might be needed
for.  Please don't misunderstand me: I don't mean to suggest that I
doubt on Christophe's qualification for this job - I mean nobody
would be able to do this without being able to test the code on all
the plethora of different boards that once needed such quirks.

Starting with all the old code and trying to remove unused stuff is
_guaranteed_ to fail.  We have to go the other way: start with
minimal code and add only what is really needed - especially as this
is a dead, obsolete processor architecture, and chances that any new
boards be added is epsilon.

It is in Christophe's own interest to restrict the code to those
parts that his boards really need.  I admit that I am responsible
for large parts of that code, and I well remeber the #ifdef mess
that was added way back thento deal with all the subtleties of the
many boards we had to support.  Trust me, I know what I'm speaking
about.

To make this clear: I am in no way against continuing to support
mpc8xx.  But we should not let him run into an unmaintainable mess
of code.



Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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