The vfio-fsl-mc driver has been orphaned since April 2024 after the
maintainer became unresponsive.  More than a year later, the driver
has only received community maintenance.  Let's take the next step
towards removal by marking it obsolete/deprecated.

The vfio-platform and vfio-amba drivers have an active maintainer,
but even the maintainer has no ability to test these drivers anymore.
The hardware itself has become obsolete and despite Eric's efforts to
add support for new devices and presenting on the complexities of
trying to manage and support shared resources at KVM Forum 2024, the
state of the driver and ability to test it upstream has not advanced.
The experiment has been useful, but seems to be reaching a conclusion.
QEMU intends to remove vfio-platform support in the 10.2 release.
Mark these drivers as obsolete/deprecated in the kernel as well.

Thanks,
Alex

Alex Williamson (2):
  vfio/fsl-mc: Mark for removal
  vfio/platform: Mark for removal

 MAINTAINERS                           |  4 ++--
 drivers/vfio/fsl-mc/Kconfig           |  5 ++++-
 drivers/vfio/fsl-mc/vfio_fsl_mc.c     |  2 ++
 drivers/vfio/platform/Kconfig         | 10 ++++++++--
 drivers/vfio/platform/reset/Kconfig   |  6 +++---
 drivers/vfio/platform/vfio_amba.c     |  2 ++
 drivers/vfio/platform/vfio_platform.c |  2 ++
 7 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

-- 
2.50.1

On 8/6/25 19:03, Alex Williamson wrote:
> The vfio-fsl-mc driver has been orphaned since April 2024 after the
> maintainer became unresponsive.  More than a year later, the driver
> has only received community maintenance.  Let's take the next step
> towards removal by marking it obsolete/deprecated.
> 
> The vfio-platform and vfio-amba drivers have an active maintainer,
> but even the maintainer has no ability to test these drivers anymore.
> The hardware itself has become obsolete and despite Eric's efforts to
> add support for new devices and presenting on the complexities of
> trying to manage and support shared resources at KVM Forum 2024, the
> state of the driver and ability to test it upstream has not advanced.
> The experiment has been useful, but seems to be reaching a conclusion.
> QEMU intends to remove vfio-platform support in the 10.2 release.
> Mark these drivers as obsolete/deprecated in the kernel as well.
> 
> Thanks,
> Alex
> 
> Alex Williamson (2):
>    vfio/fsl-mc: Mark for removal
>    vfio/platform: Mark for removal
> 
>   MAINTAINERS                           |  4 ++--
>   drivers/vfio/fsl-mc/Kconfig           |  5 ++++-
>   drivers/vfio/fsl-mc/vfio_fsl_mc.c     |  2 ++
>   drivers/vfio/platform/Kconfig         | 10 ++++++++--
>   drivers/vfio/platform/reset/Kconfig   |  6 +++---
>   drivers/vfio/platform/vfio_amba.c     |  2 ++
>   drivers/vfio/platform/vfio_platform.c |  2 ++
>   7 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
> 


Reviewed-by: Cédric Le Goater <clg@redhat.com>

Thanks,

C.

On Wed, Aug 06, 2025 at 11:03:10AM -0600, Alex Williamson wrote:
> The vfio-fsl-mc driver has been orphaned since April 2024 after the
> maintainer became unresponsive.  More than a year later, the driver
> has only received community maintenance.  Let's take the next step
> towards removal by marking it obsolete/deprecated.
> 
> The vfio-platform and vfio-amba drivers have an active maintainer,
> but even the maintainer has no ability to test these drivers anymore.
> The hardware itself has become obsolete and despite Eric's efforts to
> add support for new devices and presenting on the complexities of
> trying to manage and support shared resources at KVM Forum 2024, the
> state of the driver and ability to test it upstream has not advanced.
> The experiment has been useful, but seems to be reaching a conclusion.
> QEMU intends to remove vfio-platform support in the 10.2 release.
> Mark these drivers as obsolete/deprecated in the kernel as well.

It seems fine, but I'd just remove them entirely right now. It is easy
enough to revert a removal down the road if someone comes with a
compelling reason.

Reviewed-by: Jason Gunthorpe <jgg@nvidia.com>

Jason

Hi Alex,

On 8/6/25 7:03 PM, Alex Williamson wrote:
> The vfio-fsl-mc driver has been orphaned since April 2024 after the
> maintainer became unresponsive.  More than a year later, the driver
> has only received community maintenance.  Let's take the next step
> towards removal by marking it obsolete/deprecated.
>
> The vfio-platform and vfio-amba drivers have an active maintainer,
> but even the maintainer has no ability to test these drivers anymore.
> The hardware itself has become obsolete and despite Eric's efforts to
> add support for new devices and presenting on the complexities of
> trying to manage and support shared resources at KVM Forum 2024, the
> state of the driver and ability to test it upstream has not advanced.
> The experiment has been useful, but seems to be reaching a conclusion.
> QEMU intends to remove vfio-platform support in the 10.2 release.
> Mark these drivers as obsolete/deprecated in the kernel as well.

for the whole series:
Reviewed-by: Eric Auger <eric.auger@redhat.com>

Thanks

Eric
>
> Thanks,
> Alex
>
> Alex Williamson (2):
>   vfio/fsl-mc: Mark for removal
>   vfio/platform: Mark for removal
>
>  MAINTAINERS                           |  4 ++--
>  drivers/vfio/fsl-mc/Kconfig           |  5 ++++-
>  drivers/vfio/fsl-mc/vfio_fsl_mc.c     |  2 ++
>  drivers/vfio/platform/Kconfig         | 10 ++++++++--
>  drivers/vfio/platform/reset/Kconfig   |  6 +++---
>  drivers/vfio/platform/vfio_amba.c     |  2 ++
>  drivers/vfio/platform/vfio_platform.c |  2 ++
>  7 files changed, 23 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
>