Dear Simon,
In message CAPnjgZ3APwSJZV7zPe+b8A58zu-dxHdRGLcyiWHCm6dqQyFH3g@mail.gmail.com you wrote:
please don't dual-purpose device trees as a mechanism of getting arguments through the kernel into userspace - device trees strictly describe the hardware.
That's certainly the primary purpose, but it is also true that the device tree is a convenient way to pass things to the kernel. It is in fact becoming the only way on ARM systems. We certainly use it to pass general information to the kernel, for example the command line.
I think Kim is right in pointing out that this was given the name DEVICE tree for a reason - it's not being called "general purpose information tree".
You may be right that it's a convenient way to pass information to the kernel - ut note that the original question said: "The arguments are needed by user space applications, not the kernel." I think using the kernel command line here ins more appropriate.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk