-----Original Message-----
From: Stefan Roese [mailto:sr@denx.de]
Sent: Tuesday, February 12, 2013 4:34 PM
To: Bhushan Bharat-R65777
Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org; linuxppc-dev@ozlabs.org; Anatolij Gustschin; =

David

S. Miller
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] net: fec_mpc52xx: Read MAC address from device-tr=

ee

=20
On 12.02.2013 11:56, Bhushan Bharat-R65777 wrote:

quoted

quoted

Until now, the MPC5200 FEC ethernet driver relied upon the bootloader
(U-Boot) to write the MAC address into the ethernet controller
registers. The Linux driver should not rely on such a thing. So lets
read the MAC address from the DT as it should be done here.

The following priority is now used to read the MAC address:

1) First, try OF node MAC address, if not present or invalid, then:

2) Read from MAC address registers, if invalid, then:

Why we read from MAC registers if Linux should not rely on bootloader?

=20
It was suggested by David. Backwards compatibility. Here Davids comment t=

o my

original patch which removed this register reading completely:
=20
"
I don't think this is a conservative enough change.
=20
You have to keep the MAC register reading code around, as a backup code p=

ath in

case the OF device node lacks a MAC address "

Ok,

But this is really a backward compatibility or hiding some bug? My thought =
is that if DT does not have a valid MAC address then it is a BUG and should=
 be fixed. Is not it?

-Bharat

=20
Thanks,
Stefan