[RFC PATCH 0/4] Remove some e300/MPC83xx evaluation platforms

[Arnd Bergmann]

On Tue, Feb 28, 2023, at 11:03, Joakim Tjernlund wrote:
> On Mon, 2023-02-27 at 14:48 -0600, Li Yang wrote:
>> > > > 
>> > > > Here, we remove the MPC8548E-MDS[1], the MPC8360E-MDS[2], the
>> > > > MPC837xE-MDS[3], and the MPC832x-MDS[4] board support from the kernel.
>> > > > 
>> > > > There will still exist several e300 Freescale Reference Design System (RDS)
>> > > > boards[5] and mini-ITX boards[6] with support in the kernel.  While these
>> > > > were more of a COTS "ready to deploy" design more suited to hobbyists, it
>> > > > probably makes sense to consider removing these as well, based on age.
>> > > 
>> > > These boards are mass market boards that sold in larger amount and are much more likely to still be used.  We would suggest we keep them for now.
>
> Agreed, the RDS design is still used here.

Can you elaborate what the typical kernel upgrade schedule for
these boards?

Note that for the debate about dropping the machines from future
kernels, it does not really matter how many remaining users there
are or how many boards get sold. The only question is whether
someone is still planning to provide upgrades to kernels later
than linux-6.3 in the future.

It sounds like there are commercial requirements for validating
and distributing kernel upgrades (in addition to hobbyist uses), so
I would expect that whoever is paying for the upgrades has a clear
plan for how much longer they are going to do that, or at least
a some idea of how many of the previous LTS kernels (5.10, 5.15,
6.1) ended up actually getting shipped to users.

It may be worth pointing out that the official webpage for
the MPC8313ERDB board in the example only lists a hilariously
outdated BSP kernel based on a patched linux-2.6.23 release,
so maybe the marketing team can change that to point to the
latest validated LTS kernel instead.

     Arnd