[PATCH 2/2 v3] smbios: Fallback to the default DT if sysinfo nodes are missing

[neil.armstrong at linaro.org]

On 17/12/2023 19:41, Tom Rini wrote:
> On Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 11:46:18AM -0700, Simon Glass wrote:
>> Hi Tom,
>>
>> On Thu, 14 Dec 2023 at 06:11, Tom Rini <trini at konsulko.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed, Dec 13, 2023 at 08:19:11PM -0700, Simon Glass wrote:
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>> The new DT nodes / SMBIOS binding [1] allows for the correct
>>>> information to be provided, though.
>>> [snip]
>>>> [1] https://github.com/u-boot/u-boot/blob/master/doc/device-tree-bindings/sysinfo/smbios.txt
>>>
>>> I think the only feedback I can give on your message here is to please
>>> go upstream that binding, and then we can see what to do afterwards.
>>
>> I am still tearing my hair out waiting for the reserved-memory and
>> binman patches to be accepted. Every few weeks there is another
>> comment, but no action. Rob seems to be the only one engaged.
>>
>> Perhaps I should do a conference talk about what is wrong with DT?
> 
> Perhaps.
> 
>> This is my experience so far:
>>
>> - there is no urgency to apply anything
>> - no one wins acclaim for applying a patch
>> - everyone complains later if a patch is applied that they didn't agree with
>> - people chime in wanting to understand the use case, but don't/can't/won't
>> - any sort of expressed doubt results in delay
>> - maintainers hope that the submitter will lose interest and go away
>> - not enough people add review tags, even if they look at it
>>     ... because they are worried about looking bad to others on the ML

I agree some subsystems are not easy to deal with, but it's not the case for most of them (Qcom, Amlogic, TI, ST...),
and I think it's the case of some other Linux subsystems, and we all know it's
an issue but I do not have the power to solve that, so yes please do
a conference talk but not only about DT because it's simply not true.

>>
>> I would be happy to discuss how to improve matters, but that is what I see.
>>
>> Anyway, the lowest-hanging fruit at present is the U-Boot /options
>> stuff. I was hoping someone else would step up to clean it up. There
>> should be no impediment.
> 
> And my point with the above is that other SoC maintainers (Neil, for
> amlogic) have said (paraphrasing) he does not want to do N smbios node
> patches. Which is why Ilias' patch is if not 1000% correct, it's Good
> Enough and will, if it's really a problem to have all lower case
> information displayed, spur people to see providing that information as
> a real problem that needs to be solved. Or it will be seen as good
> enough.
> 

If some platforms requires a more "correct" smbios dataset, then they're
welcome adding the required smbios node, and it's perfectly understandable,
but for the other community-maintained platforms we need some valid fallback
data otherwise they'll be de facto excluded from some tools for no valid reasons.

Neil