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6213f70e7c
Consolidating the "pen_release" stuff amongst the various SoC implementations gives credence to having a CPU holding pen for secondary CPUs. However, this is far from the truth. Many SoC implementations cargo-cult copied various bits of the pen release implementation from the initial Realview/Versatile Express implementation without understanding what it was or why it existed. The reason it existed is because these are _development_ platforms, and some board firmware is unable to individually control the startup of secondary CPUs. Moreover, they do not have a way to power down or reset secondary CPUs for hot-unplug. Hence, the pen_release implementation was designed for ARM Ltd's development platforms to provide a working implementation, even though it is very far from what is required. It was decided a while back to reduce the duplication by consolidating the "pen_release" variable, but this only made the situation worse - we have ended up with several implementations that read this variable but do not write it - again, showing the cargo-cult mentality at work, lack of proper review of new code, and in some cases a lack of testing. While it would be preferable to remove pen_release entirely from the kernel, this is not possible without help from the SoC maintainers, which seems to be lacking. However, I want to remove pen_release from arch code to remove the credence that having it gives. This patch removes pen_release from the arch code entirely, adding private per-SoC definitions for it instead, and explicitly stating that write_pen_release() is cargo-cult copied and should not be copied any further. Rename write_pen_release() in a similar fashion as well. Signed-off-by: Russell King <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>
Linux kernel
============
There are several guides for kernel developers and users. These guides can
be rendered in a number of formats, like HTML and PDF. Please read
Documentation/admin-guide/README.rst first.
In order to build the documentation, use ``make htmldocs`` or
``make pdfdocs``. The formatted documentation can also be read online at:
https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/
There are various text files in the Documentation/ subdirectory,
several of them using the Restructured Text markup notation.
Please read the Documentation/process/changes.rst file, as it contains the
requirements for building and running the kernel, and information about
the problems which may result by upgrading your kernel.