[PATCH v2] drivers/crypto: Mark QCE as BROKEN

[Bartosz Golaszewski]

On Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:20:40 +0200, Eric Biggers <ebiggers at kernel.org> said:
> On Wed, Jul 22, 2026 at 01:33:51AM -0700, Bartosz Golaszewski wrote:
>> > Also, what can the current driver do that cannot be done better using
>> > software crypto?  I understand that you have future plans to add more
>> > features to the driver, but those are not relevant to this discussion.
>> >
>>
>> We can offload crypto operations to the QCE saving CPU cycles but more
>> importantly, the QCE provides HW based isolation which some vendors care
>> about.
>
> Do you have any concrete proof of anyone using this with a specific
> Linux kernel feature and actually getting a benefit from it?
>

I'm not required to produce a proof of Qualcomm's clients using it. That's
never been a requirement to keep a driver in mainline. I'm saying that Qualcomm
wants to keep it and I've stepped up to fix and maintain it, which is what I'm
doing.

But yes, I know about companies that do use this driver as is for whatever
reasons. I'm not sure I can mention them so I won't.

> Just for some additional context, I've been on the Android team for many
> years and have worked with lots of companies shipping Android devices
> with Qualcomm SoCs.  I also upstreamed the support for the
> Qualcomm Inline Crypto Engine (ICE)
> (https://lore.kernel.org/all/20200710072013.177481-6-ebiggers@kernel.org/
> https://lore.kernel.org/linux-mmc/20210126001456.382989-9-ebiggers@kernel.org/),
> which is what people actually use and isn't the same as QCE.
>

Yes, I know about your work. Thank you for doing all of that.

Best Regards,
Bartosz