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

[Li Yang]

On Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 11:52 AM Arnd Bergmann <arnd at arndb.de> wrote:
>
> 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 outdated BSP kernel based on a patched linux-2.6.23 release,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.

The BSP/SDK releases from NXP do follow a different development
principle from working with upstream directly.  However, we do value
the customers who prefer to work closer with the upstream community
than relying on our BSPs/SDKs deliveries and that's why we pushed our
development team internally to upstream code as much as possible.  And
we will try to help keep them well maintained in the community.

Regards,
Leo