Re: [GIT PULL] SAA716x DVB driver

[Soeren Moch <smoch@web.de>]

On 02.12.2017 20:49, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
> Em Sat, 2 Dec 2017 18:51:16 +0000
> Jemma Denson <jdenson@gmail.com> escreveu:
>
>> Hi Mauro,
>>
>> On 27/11/17 11:24, Mauro Carvalho Chehab wrote:
>>> Em Fri, 24 Nov 2017 17:28:37 +0100
>>> Tycho Lürsen <tycholursen@gmail.com> escreveu:
>>>  
>>>> Hi Mauro,
>>>>
>>>> afaik the last communication about submission of this driver was about
>>>> two months ago.
>>>>
>>>> This driver is important to me, because I own several TurboSight cards
>>>> that are saa716x based. I want to submit a patch that supports my cards.
>>>> Of course I can only do so when you accept this driver in the first place.
>>>>
>>>> Any chance you and Sören agree about how to proceed about this driver
>>>> anytime soon?  
>>> If we can reach an agreement about what should be done for the driver
>>> to be promoted from staging some day, I'll merge it. Otherwise,
>>> it can be kept maintained out of tree. This driver has been maintained
>>> OOT for a very long time, and it seems that people were happy with
>>> that, as only at the second half of this year someone is requesting
>>> to merge it.
>>>
>>> So, while I agree that the best is to merge it upstream and
>>> address the issues that made it OOT for a long time, we shouldn't
>>> rush it with the risk of doing more harm than good.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Mauro  
>> Would I be correct in thinking the main blocker to this is the *_ff features
>> used by the S2-6400 card? There's plenty of other cards using this chipset
>> that don't need that part.
>>
>> Would a solution for now to be a driver with the ff components stripped out,
>> and then the ff API work can be done later when / if there's any interest?
> Works for me. In such case (and provided that the driver without *_ff are
> in good shape), we could merge it under drivers/media (instead of merging
> it on staging).
All the entries in the TODO file are not specific for saa716x_ff.
>> I guess a problem would be finding a maintainer, I'm happy to put together
>> a stripped down driver just supporting the TBS card I use (I already have
>> one I use with dkms), but I'm not sure I have the time or knowledge of this
>> chipset to be a maintainer.
There is chipset specific stuff to fix, especially irq handling.
> As we're talking more about touching at uAPI, probably it doesn't require
> chipsed knowledge. Only time and interest on doing it.
>
> Please sync with Soeren. Perhaps if you both could help on it, it would
> make the task easier.
As I already wrote to different people off-list: I'm happy to support
more cards with the saa7160 bridge and maintain these in this driver. As
hobbyist programmer this of course makes no sense to me, if the hardware
I own (S2-6400) is not supported.

Regards,
Soeren
>> Unfortunately my workplace is phasing out
>> these cards otherwise I'd try and get them to sponsor me rather than do it
>> on my own time!
> Yeah, getting sponsored to do it would make things easier.
>
> Thanks,
> Mauro