Scheduling (unused) board file removal for linux-6.x

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 11:22 AM Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk at kernel.org> wrote:
> On 30/06/2022 11:08, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> > On Thu, Jun 30, 2022 at 9:10 AM Krzysztof Kozlowski <krzk at kernel.org> wrote:
> >> On 29/06/2022 22:42, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> >>>
> >>> s3c64xx
> >>>
> >>> There are ten board files, which are currently scheduled for removal in
> >>> 2024, along with the DT based boards for this SoC. We can still decide
> >>> to throw out some of the board files earlier though, while keeping the
> >>> platform around.
> >>
> >> I would keep all s3c24xx/s3c64xx boards till the platform drop. Removing
> >> few boards before platform won't give us huge benefits... and anyway
> >> just 1 and 2 years and they all will be gone.
> >
> > I think there is benefit in throwing out some unused s3c64xx boards
> > even earlier, as this would simplify some treewide cleanups that have to
> > touch every board file, and potentially let us drop some peripheral
> > device drivers that have no other users and no DT probing.
> >
> > Ten boards is of course not a lot, but it's still about a third of the
> > board files I have currently marked as sticking around past early
> > 2023.
>
> OK, if you have some idea which one could be the candidates.
> Unfortunately I cannot provide here inputs - I have no clue which of S3C
> boards have users.

The only one I know of is MACH_WLF_CRAGG_6410, as Mark Brown
has pointed this one out as being used as the testbed for Wolfson/Cirrus
audio codecs. The machine is also the only one that shows being worked
on from the git history. The last patches I found that look like they were
boot tested on other machines include work by Kukjin Kim in 2015 and by
Sergio Prado in 2016, but I don't see which boards they were using, and
I don't think they still care. Thomasz Figa had access to multiple
machines back in 2014, but he converted those to use DT.

If we follow the same approach that I'm suggesting for the other
platforms and nobody else speaks up, that would leave only the DT
boards plus the Cragganmore.

       Arnd