Dear Stephen Warren,
In message 50CA1BB8.4000704@wwwdotorg.org you wrote:
Arghh... Do we really, really have to invent yet another way to pass hardware configuration information? Especially one totally incompatible to any other system?
This is a special case for the console UART. The idea is to get that up and running well before device tree is parsed in any way. For example, Tegra's SPL doesn't touch the device tree in any way (or even know one exists) but does want to print (possibly error) messages in a generic fashion. Similarly, many problems could occur before the device tree is parsed (e.g. the user forgets to provide one...), and having specifically the console UART set up before that allows those errors to be reported, rather than requiring a JTAG or similar debugger.
My intent is that ODMDATA will definitely only be used for the console UART, and will NOT be used for anything else like LCD, RTC, ... Those other devices will certainly be configured via device tree.
We've been there before, you know.
OK - what is the scope of visibility of such code? Will it be strictly board specific only? Or SoC specific? Arch? Global?
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk