[PATCH v6] drm/fourcc: document modifier uniqueness requirements

[PATCH v6] drm/fourcc: document modifier uniqueness requirements

[Simon Ser]

There have suggestions to bake pitch alignment, address alignement,
contiguous memory or other placement (hidden VRAM, GTT/BAR, etc)
constraints into modifiers. Last time this was brought up it seemed
like the consensus was to not allow this. Document this in drm_fourcc.h.

There are several reasons for this.

- Encoding all of these constraints in the modifiers would explode the
  search space pretty quickly (we only have 64 bits to work with).
- Modifiers need to be unambiguous: a buffer can only have a single
  modifier.
- Modifier users aren't expected to parse modifiers (except drivers).

v2: add paragraph about aliases (Daniel)

v3: fix unrelated changes sent with the patch

v4: disambiguate users between driver and higher-level programs (Brian,
Daniel)

v5: fix AFBC example (Brian, Daniel)

v6: remove duplicated paragraph (Daniel)

Signed-off-by: Simon Ser <contact@emersion.fr>
Reviewed-by: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@ffwll.ch>
Cc: Daniel Stone <daniel@fooishbar.org>
Cc: Bas Nieuwenhuizen <bas@basnieuwenhuizen.nl>
Cc: Dave Airlie <airlied@gmail.com>
Cc: Marek Olšák <maraeo@gmail.com>
Cc: Alex Deucher <alexdeucher@gmail.com>
Cc: Neil Armstrong <narmstrong@baylibre.com>
Cc: Michel Dänzer <michel@daenzer.net>
Cc: Brian Starkey <brian.starkey@arm.com>
---
 include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 24 insertions(+)

diff --git a/include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h b/include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h
index 490143500a50..8eaa158fef81 100644
--- a/include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h
+++ b/include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h
@@ -58,6 +58,30 @@ extern "C" {
  * may preserve meaning - such as number of planes - from the fourcc code,
  * whereas others may not.
  *
+ * Modifiers must uniquely encode buffer layout. In other words, a buffer must
+ * match only a single modifier. A modifier must not be a subset of layouts of
+ * another modifier. For instance, it's incorrect to encode pitch alignment in
+ * a modifier: a buffer may match a 64-pixel aligned modifier and a 32-pixel
+ * aligned modifier. That said, modifiers can have implicit minimal
+ * requirements.
+ *
+ * For modifiers where the combination of fourcc code and modifier can alias,
+ * a canonical pair needs to be defined and used by all drivers. Preferred
+ * combinations are also encouraged where all combinations might lead to
+ * confusion and unnecessarily reduced interoperability. An example for the
+ * latter is AFBC, where the ABGR layouts are preferred over ARGB layouts.
+ *
+ * There are two kinds of modifier users:
+ *
+ * - Kernel and user-space drivers: for drivers it's important that modifiers
+ *   don't alias, otherwise two drivers might support the same format but use
+ *   different aliases, preventing them from sharing buffers in an efficient
+ *   format.
+ * - Higher-level programs interfacing with KMS/GBM/EGL/Vulkan/etc: these users
+ *   see modifiers as opaque tokens they can check for equality and intersect.
+ *   These users musn't need to know to reason about the modifier value
+ *   (i.e. they are not expected to extract information out of the modifier).
+ *
  * Vendors should document their modifier usage in as much detail as
  * possible, to ensure maximum compatibility across devices, drivers and
  * applications.
-- 
2.27.0


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Re: [PATCH v6] drm/fourcc: document modifier uniqueness requirements

[Brian Starkey]

Looks good now, thanks!

On Wed, Jun 24, 2020 at 01:01:31PM +0000, Simon Ser wrote:
> There have suggestions to bake pitch alignment, address alignement,
> contiguous memory or other placement (hidden VRAM, GTT/BAR, etc)
> constraints into modifiers. Last time this was brought up it seemed
> like the consensus was to not allow this. Document this in drm_fourcc.h.
> 
> There are several reasons for this.
> 
> - Encoding all of these constraints in the modifiers would explode the
>   search space pretty quickly (we only have 64 bits to work with).
> - Modifiers need to be unambiguous: a buffer can only have a single
>   modifier.
> - Modifier users aren't expected to parse modifiers (except drivers).
> 
> v2: add paragraph about aliases (Daniel)
> 
> v3: fix unrelated changes sent with the patch
> 
> v4: disambiguate users between driver and higher-level programs (Brian,
> Daniel)
> 
> v5: fix AFBC example (Brian, Daniel)
> 
> v6: remove duplicated paragraph (Daniel)
> 
> Signed-off-by: Simon Ser <contact@emersion.fr>
> Reviewed-by: Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter@ffwll.ch>
> Cc: Daniel Stone <daniel@fooishbar.org>
> Cc: Bas Nieuwenhuizen <bas@basnieuwenhuizen.nl>
> Cc: Dave Airlie <airlied@gmail.com>
> Cc: Marek Olšák <maraeo@gmail.com>
> Cc: Alex Deucher <alexdeucher@gmail.com>
> Cc: Neil Armstrong <narmstrong@baylibre.com>
> Cc: Michel Dänzer <michel@daenzer.net>
> Cc: Brian Starkey <brian.starkey@arm.com>
> ---
>  include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h | 24 ++++++++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 24 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h b/include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h
> index 490143500a50..8eaa158fef81 100644
> --- a/include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h
> +++ b/include/uapi/drm/drm_fourcc.h
> @@ -58,6 +58,30 @@ extern "C" {
>   * may preserve meaning - such as number of planes - from the fourcc code,
>   * whereas others may not.
>   *
> + * Modifiers must uniquely encode buffer layout. In other words, a buffer must
> + * match only a single modifier. A modifier must not be a subset of layouts of
> + * another modifier. For instance, it's incorrect to encode pitch alignment in
> + * a modifier: a buffer may match a 64-pixel aligned modifier and a 32-pixel
> + * aligned modifier. That said, modifiers can have implicit minimal
> + * requirements.
> + *
> + * For modifiers where the combination of fourcc code and modifier can alias,
> + * a canonical pair needs to be defined and used by all drivers. Preferred
> + * combinations are also encouraged where all combinations might lead to
> + * confusion and unnecessarily reduced interoperability. An example for the
> + * latter is AFBC, where the ABGR layouts are preferred over ARGB layouts.
> + *
> + * There are two kinds of modifier users:
> + *
> + * - Kernel and user-space drivers: for drivers it's important that modifiers
> + *   don't alias, otherwise two drivers might support the same format but use
> + *   different aliases, preventing them from sharing buffers in an efficient
> + *   format.
> + * - Higher-level programs interfacing with KMS/GBM/EGL/Vulkan/etc: these users
> + *   see modifiers as opaque tokens they can check for equality and intersect.
> + *   These users musn't need to know to reason about the modifier value
> + *   (i.e. they are not expected to extract information out of the modifier).
> + *
>   * Vendors should document their modifier usage in as much detail as
>   * possible, to ensure maximum compatibility across devices, drivers and
>   * applications.
> -- 
> 2.27.0
> 
> 
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