Old platforms: bring out your dead

Måns Rullgård mans at mansr.com
Mon Jan 11 12:29:01 EST 2021


Marc Gonzalez <marc.w.gonzalez at free.fr> writes:

> [ Dropping maintainers of other platforms ]
>
> On 08/01/2021 23:55, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
>
>> After v5.10 was officially declared an LTS kernel, I had a look around
>> the Arm platforms that look like they have not seen any patches from
>> their maintainers or users that are actually running the hardware for
>> at least five years (2015 or earlier). I made some statistics and lists
>> for my lwn.net article last year [1], so I'd thought I'd share a summary
>> here for discussion about what we should remove. As I found three
>> years ago when I removed several CPU architectures, it makes sense
>> to do this in bulk, to simplify a scripted search for device drivers, header
>> files and Kconfig options that become unused in the process.
>> 
>> This is probably a mix of platforms that are completely unused and
>> those that just work, but I have no good way of knowing which one
>> it is. Without hearing back about these, I'd propose removing all of
>> these:
>> 
>> * asm9260 -- added in 2014, no notable changes after 2015
>> * axxia -- added in 2014, no notable changes after 2015
>> * bcm/kona -- added in 2013, no notable changes after 2014
>> * digicolor -- added in 2014, no notable changes after 2015
>> * dove -- added in 2009, obsoleted by mach-mvebu in 2015
>> * efm32 -- added in 2011, first Cortex-M, no notable changes after 2013
>> * nspire -- added in 2013, no notable changes after 2015
>> * picoxcell -- added in 2011, already queued for removal
>> * prima2 -- added in 20111, no notable changes since 2015
>> * spear -- added in 2010, no notable changes since 2015
>> * tango -- added in 2015, sporadic changes until 2017, but abandoned
>> * u300 -- added in 2009, no notable changes since 2013
>> * vt8500 -- added in 2010, no notable changes since 2014
>> * zx --added in 2015 for both 32, 2017 for 64 bit, no notable changes
>> 
>> If any of the above are not dead yet[2], please let me know,
>> and we'll keep them.
>> 
>
> I didn't see Mans in the CC list. Not sure he's seen this message.
>
> As far as tango is concerned, I didn't keep any boards.
>
> Mans might have some tango3 and tango4 boards.
>
> Waiting for his take on the matter.
>
> I can point out some device-specific drivers that would become
> useless if tango support were dropped.

I have tango3 and tango4 boards.  Can't say I'm using them for anything,
though.  With the entire platform dead at the vendor level, removal
seems like a reasonable choice.

-- 
Måns Rullgård



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