On 1/26/07, Ulf Samuelsson ulfs@atmel.com wrote:
Now with the new approach to introducing patches, I think the SAM9 patches should be sent in soon and you will have a significant number of boards that will break if you screw up.
Just because I write the patches doesn't mean they get accepted. They need to be acked by someone who has tested them first. I'm offering to take on the workload of writing the patches, but I cannot take on the testing. A number of the changes that I'm making right now (not just DataFlash) affect every single board, but I cannot test them all. Best I can do is make sure it works on the handful of boards I do have, post the patches for others to test, and only request inclusion in mainline when nobody reports problems with them.
I beleive a more proper approach is that If you cannot test the patches yourself, then you need to wait until someone confirms that the patch is actually working.
If noone tests the patch, that is an indication that noone is interested.
Fair enough. I'm still going to push for change though. :)
For the stuff that *is* in mainline, I will of course make sure that the patches compile, but I cannot test them. I do not have the hardware to do so, nor will I spend the time to test boards that I have absolutely no involvement with.
That sound like a great idea, introduce significant modifications without testing...
The mods I'm interested in are the architectural changes which I can and will test. The DataFlash changes are collateral damage. The alternative for me is to break dataflash support without even attempting to providing a solution.
I think you should spend time on modifying things you *can* test.
Then how does *anybody* attempt to fix common code? Nobody can test all platforms.
No, but you started off by saying you specifically are focusing on dataflash, and then you need to test on the primary target for the dataflash which is the AT91 series.
Then I apologies and ask for forgiveness. I want to see some of the crazy side cases removed from the generic routines (and replaced with generic hooks where appropriate). I should have couched it more in those terms when I first brought it up.
Plus, looking deeper there are similar issues with MMC and flash writing which can probably be cleaned up at the same time (as discussed in a previous email)
Cheers, g.