[RFC]Question regrading TODO list for bcm2835 camera and bcm2835-audio

[Michael Zoran]

On Mon, 2017-02-27 at 08:14 +0100, Greg KH wrote:
> On Sun, Feb 26, 2017 at 11:56:04AM -0800, Michael Zoran wrote:
> > I noticed that the TODO list for the RPI camera and the audio
> > driver
> > have fixing the issue of the runtime load order dependency between
> > vchiq and the function driver(camera/audio). The TODO list mentions
> > making the camera driver a platform driver.
> > 
> > I've been toying for awhile with the concept of making vchiq a bus
> > driver that function drivers register with rather the making the
> > camera
> > a platform driver.  Meaning when vchiq loads, it walks the
> > registered
> > functions drivers and using the standard driver methods and bus
> > matching methods it calls the probe function on the function
> > drivers.
> > 
> > Taking this farther, one could also change vchiq to be a non-
> > platform
> > driver with the raspberrypi firmware driver also being a bus
> > driver.  I
> > have prototyped converting the firmware driver to be a bus driver,
> > but
> > perhaps it would be better to start from the other direction and
> > convert the camera and audio drivers first.
> 
> Yes!  I hate platform drivers, they abuse the system in lots of
> places.
> I strongly recommend bus-specific drivers and subsystems like this,
> so
> this has my vote for "things that would be good to do" :)

Seriously Greg, your joking right?  I'm not 100% sure how to take what
your saying.

It's not like doing this is much code.  I have something mostly working
with a few hundred lines.  The basics of it are described in the book,
"Linux Device Drivers".  I do understand I'm a newbee and all through
and this is a more advanced topic.

Platform drivers are great for root devices of a system, but I'm not
sure they make sense for things that are attached through a driver. 
The e-mails from them keep putting the title, "Free and open flat
firmware and drivers."  Well, vc04_services isn't free, open or flat.