Re: [Regression 5.14] media: dvb userspace api

[Manu Abraham <abraham.manu@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 10:30 PM Linus Torvalds
<torvalds@linux-foundation.org> wrote:
>
> I have reverted the header file move. But I would also heartily
> recommend that whatever user program includes those headers (VDR -
> anything else?) should take snapshots of these specific kernel
> headers.
>
> I'm not convinced that it makes sense to move the av7110 driver back
> from staging - it may continue to work, but it _is_ old and there is
> no maintenance - and I would certainly suggest that any other
> out-of-tree driver that uses these old interfaces that nothing else
> implements shouldn't do so, considering that nothing else implements
> them.

Sorry for barging in between your discussion, but it seemed like you really
missed some perspective and hence.

My 2 cents worth:
* Revert the header changes.

* Let someone else with knowledge of it take over the maintenance
of the av7110 driver.

  - This would allow other hardware also to be easily accommodated
in a similar manner.

* Pull the out of tree drivers and allocate maintenance of those, to
someone who understands them. Don't you want more hardware to be
supported out of the box ?

Should there be no driver for those DVB output hardware, but only for
V4L2 output devices ?

There exists other hardware which As a person who worked on another
av7110 like driver (saa716x based s2 6400), which I can confirm.
The API is supposed to simplify life, not make it even more complex.
These devices would need lot of workarounds to work with the API that
which Mauro advocates, which might even break those drivers given
their complexity and size.

It would make life a lot easier for the users, Mauro himself and
this long never ending discussion can be put to rest.

Thanks,
MA