Old platforms: bring out your dead

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Mon, Jan 11, 2021 at 11:27 AM Alexander Sverdlin
<alexander.sverdlin at nokia.com> wrote:
> On 11/01/2021 10:31, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> >>> * axxia -- added in 2014, no notable changes after 2015
> >> This one is still widely used there is a chance you are using it too when
> >> traveling in Asia or USA :)
> > I know this one has a large installed base, and that Intel were at
> > least working on it for a while after upstream contributions stopped.
> >
> > However, my impression was that the port was never completed
> > upstream before the acquisition, and that the new owners had no
> > interest in working with us. In particular, none of the later Axxia
> > SoCs (ppc32/axe3500, arm64/axm5600, arm64/axc6700) ever got
> > submitted for inclusion as far as I can tell.
> >
> > The latest public source code I found is at https://github.com/axxia/,
> > but this is a heavily patched linux-4.9, see
> > https://github.com/axxia/axxia_yocto_linux_4.9/commits/fa03c456641
> >
> > My interpretation of this was that whoever is using Axxia chips
> > is no longer interested in upgrading to newer kernels or using
> > anything remotely resembling the code we have uptream.
>
> we indeed upgrade to the latest kernels but yes, we have to forward-port
> LSI/Intel's code again and again.
>
> And while AXM55xx is ugly hardware in itself where we need to patch a lot,
> 64-bit variants are working out of the box with vanilla kernel actually.
>
> We by no means want this platform to be thrown away, so let us work a
> road map out.
>
> I'll assess what the situation is with AXM55xx, AXM56xx and AXC67
> (which from my PoV
> is no different from AXM56xx) and share my ideas.

Sure, sounds good. Great to head the 64-bit parts actually work.
It would be great to have a Kconfig.platforms entry for it and
maybe one .dts file either for a reference machine, or one of the
products you work with.

> I'm of course not in the position to submit patches you found in their
> github account, but maybe there is another solution.

Why not? As long as the code looks reasonable and has a GPLv2
compatible license, you should be able to take any small or large
subset of their work and send it our way.

       Arnd