Re: [MAINTAINERS SUMMIT] State of dt-bindings and DT source files, and invitation request

[Conor Dooley <conor@kernel.org>]

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On Tue, Sep 10, 2024 at 10:46:03AM -0500, Rob Herring wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 10, 2024 at 5:53 AM Arınç ÜNAL <arinc.unal@arinc9.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hello.
> >
> > I maintain the MediaTek DSA subdriver and some devicetree bindings and
> > source files for MediaTek hardware.
> >
> > I am especially interested in the best practices of maintaining dt-bindings
> > and DT source files.
> >
> > There's this false impression with some maintainers that, as the
> > dt-bindings and the DT source files are being hosted on the Linux
> > repository, Linux drivers have influence over the design of bindings or

> > fixing DT source files that did not comply with the bindings.

What does "fixing DT source files that did not comply" have to do with
Linux, I'm afraid I do not understand what your point is there. The
bindings are the ABI, and fixing incorrect source files would happen
regardless of how the project is hosted?

> > I'd be very interested to be involved in or kick start the efforts to take
> > dt-bindings and DT source files out of the Linux repository into its own,
> > separate repository. I believe, this would be a great step in addressing
> > all the project-dependent bindings of Linux, U-Boot, OpenWrt, and all other
> > projects, to have a single, unified repository to describe all the hardware
> > that exists in the world.
> 
> This! This is precisely why we don't move things out of the kernel.
> The kernel is the location that has the most hardware support in the
> world by far. It is not even close. Really, the only h/w missing are
> things too small to run Linux. And with all that h/w support, comes
> the people who understand the various classes of h/w. Those people are
> not going to come along to a separate project. It would be more work
> and there aren't any maintainers looking for extra work.
> 
> We already have a separate repository[1]. U-boot has recently
> incorporated it and is happily (AFAIK) using it. It happens to be
> generated from the kernel tree, but what doesn't work for you there?
> I'm happy to discuss what it needs to work better.
> 
> > I am already working towards this goal by
> > improving the dt-bindings and DT source files on the Linux repository
> > whenever I can.
> 
> That's great, still plenty of work to do there no matter what
> repository is hosting it.
> 
> > I must be quite late to make a topic suggestion but I'd be very happy to be
> > able to attend to the maintainers summit. I've already registered for the
> > Linux Plumbers Conference 2024.
> 
> This is probably not a maintainers summit topic. There's a DT BoF
> scheduled already that Krzysztof is running and supporting other
> projects is on the agenda already. I won't be there in person nor will
> I be awake at the scheduled time.

FWIW, I will be there.

> 
> Rob
> 
> [1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/devicetree/devicetree-rebasing.git/

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