Re: [PATCH v9 1/5] firmware: add extensible driver data params

["Li, Yi" <yi1.li@linux.intel.com>]

On 6/19/2017 8:48 PM, AKASHI Takahiro wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 19, 2017 at 05:51:08PM -0500, Li, Yi wrote:
>> Hi Greg,
>>
>> On 6/17/2017 2:38 PM, Greg KH wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 09:40:11PM +0200, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Jun 13, 2017 at 11:05:48AM +0200, Greg KH wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, Jun 05, 2017 at 02:39:33PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
>>>
>>>> What you have to ask yourself really is if this makes it *less complex* and
>>>> helps *clean things up* in a much better way than it was before. Also does it
>>>> allow us to *pave the way for new functionality easily*, without creating
>>>> further mess?
>>>
>>> I agree, that's what I'm saying here.  I just do not see that happening
>>> with your patch set at all.  It's adding more code, a more complex way
>>> to interact with the subsystem, and not making driver writer lives any
>>> easier at all that I can see.
>>>
>>> Again, the code is now bigger, does more, with not even any real benefit
>>> for existing users.
>>
>> I am still new to the upstreaming world, pardon me if my understanding is
>> naive. :) My take with Luis's driver data API is that it adds a wrapper on
>> top of the old request_firmware APIs, so the new features can be
>> added/disabled by the parameters structures instead of adding/changing API
>> functions. Agree that there is not much new for existing users. It adds more
>> codes (not necessary more complex) but create a consistent way for extension
>> IMO.
> 
> Most of code of my feature, firmware signing, is implemented in common
> place between old and new APIs, while only new API has a parameter,
> DRIVER_DATA_REQ_NO_SIG_CHECK, which allow users to enable/disable
> this feature per-driver-datum. Simple enough.

I meant to say more code does NOT necessary equal to more complex, sorry 
for the confusion.

> 
> So what matters is adding yet another variant of request_firmware_xx()
> vs. adding a mere parameter?

Agree, I also prefer the parameter approach.

> 
> Thanks,
> -Takahiro AKASHI
> 
>> Below are 3 examples I tried to add streaming support to load large firmware
>> files.
>> Adding streaming with driver data API:
>> https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9738503 . This patch series depends on
>> non-cache patch series https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9793825 , which is
>> bigger than it should be since it added some codes to test firmware caching.
>> and pre-allocate buffer patch series
>> https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/9738487/
>>
>> By comparison, here is my old streaming RFC with original firmware class:
>> https://lkml.org/lkml/2017/3/9/872
>> Do you think this is the better way?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Yi