On Tue, 9 Feb 2021 20:31:32 +0000 Mickey Rachamim wrote: > On Tuesday, February 9, 2021 7:35 PM Jakub Kicinski wrote: > > Sounds like we have 3 people who don't like FW-heavy designs dominating the > > kernel - this conversation can only go one way. > > Marvell, Plvision anything to share? AFAIU the values of Linux kernel are > > open source, healthy community, empowering users. With the SDK on the > > embedded CPU your driver does not seem to tick any of these boxes. > > I'll try to share Marvell's insight and plans regarding our Prestera drivers; > > We do understand the importance and the vision behind the open-source > community - while being committed to quality, functionality and the > developers/end-users. > > We started working on the Prestera driver in Q2 2019. it took us more > than a year to get the first approved driver into 5.10, and we just > started. Right at the beginning - we implemented PP function into the > Kernel driver like the SDMA operation (This is the RX/TX DMA engine). > Yet, the FW itself - is an SW package that supports many Marvell > Prestera Switching families of devices - this is a significant SW > package that will take many working years to adapt to the Kernel > environment. We do plan to port more and more PP functions as Kernel > drivers along the way.
Okay, so it sounds like there are no technical reason for you to keep the SDK. My guess is also that you have a large customer who is expecting you to provide upstream integration, hence the contractors and taking the easiest way out. > We also are working with the community to extend Kernel functionality > with a new feature beneficial to all Kernel users (e.g. Devlink > changes) and we will continue to do it. Ah, devlink, every vendor's favorite interface. I keep my fingers crossed that you're not just talking about exposing a bunch of implementation-specific params, traps etc. > By extending the Prestera driver to in-kernel implementation with > more PP features - we will simplify the FW logic and enables > cost-effective solutions to the market/developers.
