[RFC/PATCH 0/1] mtd: Add NAND ECC devicetree binding

[Brian Norris]

On Mon, Jan 20, 2014 at 06:21:35AM +0000, Pekon Gupta wrote:
> >From: Ezequiel Garcia 
> >I'm not implying we should deprecate the recently added "ti-nand-ecc-opt",
> >but just want to know it's eventually possible.
> >
> Yes, this is good approach for long-term, and it can replace "ti-nand-ecc-opt"
> "ti-nand-ecc-opt" is not new DT binding, it just got some new values added
> However, you have to convince DT Maintainers to get this in, and then deprecate
> other vendor specific bindings. It would be difficult to maintain backward
> compatibility to these bindings, if we move to 'nand-ecc-strength'.

I don't see why it would be difficult to support both the more generic
nand-ecc-strength and the OMAP-specific ti-nand-ecc-opt in the same
driver. OMAP NAND would just have to define a helper that translates
properties like "bch8" into a strength and sector size (8 and 512,
respectively). From then on, you can treat them identically.

> At some-point we need to get some concrete guidelines from DT Maintainers on
> how long we should support deprecated bindings in our code, And what is the
> age of DT binding. I think David Woodhouse should throw more light, as he had
> some discussions & ideas on about DT binding life, during a linux conference.

Barring some new direction from the DT folks, I believe DT is an eternal
ABI. We can and should maintain compatibility forever. And in this case,
I don't think it's that hard.

Brian