[U-Boot-Users] AT91 NAND om AT91SAM9260EK

[Wolfgang Denk <wd@denx.de>]

Dear Ulf,

in message <00f201c74e25$71fdbf80$01c4af0a@Glamdring> you wrote:
>
> A contributor has no business changing  a board file
> if he cannot reasonably verify that this will not break a board.

You are right in principle, but live is not always black and white.

> > I cannot help this, and we will definitely not wait to see an ACK for
> > each and every board that is listed in the U-Boot tree.
> 
> No, but as mentioned above, different parts of U-Boot should require
> the submitter to focus on different subsets of boards.

It ain't that easy. Take for example this stupid ". = .;" addition to
the linker scripts that was needed  to  make  some  versions  of  the
toolchain  happy  -  of course I add this to ALL boards without being
able to test even half of them.

And as mentioned before: if I have a global change  to  make,  and  I
cannot   get  response  from  board  /  architecture  maintainers  in
reasonable time, that change will be made globally, even if it breaks
their boards. It's IMHO better to have a board  clearly  broken  than
having all boards in N different patch states.

> The proposed dataflash patches in our other heated discussion
> for instance should only be accepted once proven that it actually
> works with dataflash memory chips.
> The proposer seemed to be happy if the stuff compiled...
> Since that mainly affects Atmel boards, he should make
> sure to get Atmel boards or sign up testers for it,
> and have it tested before even thinking about submit patches.

I disagree with you. You cannot expect any maintainer or custodian or
other person volunteering to contribute to U-Boot code (or any  other
free  software  project)  to "get Atmel boards or sign up testers for
it". There are board maintainers,  and  it  is  their  task  to  help
testing  things. And yes, this includes that they will sometimes have
to help sorting out problems created by other people. That's  how  it
has  been,  and  will remain, even if Atmel was shipping test systems
for free.

Or do you intend to get a cmc_pu2 board or sign up testers for it  to
check your patches? No, it will be me who has to run the tests, right?

> It really does not make sense to test his patches only
> on boards which does not use the dataflash.

If that's all he has, then he has no other choice.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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