[PATCH v1] net: eth-uclass: Change uclass driver name to ethernet

[Vladimir Oltean]

On Wed, Feb 24, 2021 at 08:26:14PM +0100, Michael Walle wrote:
> > Wasn't the intention of David's patch, in fact, to have the new uclass
> > name also match on "eth" aliases? If I'm correct, doesn't this mean
> > we'll have to replace the strcmp with an actual stem check?
>
> I guess it was intended the other way around, to rename the "ethN"
> aliases to "ethernetN". The latter are used way more in u-boot's device
> trees and linux' device trees just use ethernetN aliases, though I'm
> not sure where they are used (can't find any of_alias_get_id("ethernet")
> in linux). So this makes sense, no?

Bad phrasing, I meant to ask if it was intended to _still_ match on
"eth" aliases.

By the way, Linux drivers use a combination of "ethernet" and "eth":
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/net/ethernet/samsung/sxgbe/sxgbe_platform.c#L43
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/net/ethernet/broadcom/genet/bcmmii.c#L441
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/drivers/net/ethernet/stmicro/stmmac/stmmac_platform.c#L436

> > I would not, under any circumstance, break compatibility with "eth"
> > alias names.
>
> Assuming that ethN is not used expect in u-boot device trees, how would
> we break backwards compatibility? Also it seems that the only users of
> the ethN aliases are the sandbox and u-boot's DSA.

I took another look, I was under the impression that
fdtdec_set_ethernet_mac_address searches by "eth" in the /aliases node
of the linux device tree, but it searches by "ethernet". Fair then.

Tough luck in that case for those who got it right, ugh I mean wrong, by
actually looking at the code to see what it searches for?

So yeah, this patch is waiting for someone to update the existing
aliases, and you seem to be a valid candidate. Although it's low impact,
and it's all in-tree so it isn't breaking any interface, it is up to you
if you value consistency more than correctness. I would probably fix
just the device tree you care about to use "eth" instead of "ethernet",
that seems the most localized solution to a concrete problem, then you
could convert the uclass name to "ethernet" and therefore fix all the
other users at once (and at the same time update the kontron boards).
The reason why I would leave that at the end is because when you 'fix'
stuff that isn't broken, nice surprises are always bound to happen, and
I don't think you want your board to still remain broken at the end of
some bug-canceling-another-bug-on-board-you-don't-have debugging
headaches.