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  • Pekka Paalanen's avatar
    Remove Raspberry Pi backend and renderer · ca52b31d
    Pekka Paalanen authored
    This patch completely removes the Raspberry Pi backend and the renderer.
    
    The backend and the renderer were written to use the proprietary
    DispmanX API available only on the Raspberry Pi, to demonstrate what the
    tiny computer is capable of graphics wise. They were also used to
    demonstrate how Wayland and Weston in particular could leverage hardware
    compositing capabilities that are not OpenGL. The backend was first
    added in e8de35c9, in 2012.
    
    Since then, the major point has been proven. Over time, support for the
    rpi-backend diminished, it started to deteriorate and hinder Weston
    development. On May 11, I tried to ask if anyone actually cared about
    the rpi-backend, but did not get any votes for keeping it:
    https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2016-May/028764.html
    
    The rpi-backend is a good example of how using an API that is only
    available for specific hardware, even more so as it is only available
    with a proprietary driver stack, is not maintainable in the long run.
    Most developers working on Weston either just cannot, or cannot bother
    to test things also on the RPi. Breakage creeps in without anyone
    noticing. If someone actually notices it, fixing it will require a very
    specific environment to be able to test. Also the quality of the
    proprietary implementation fluctuated. There are reports that RPi
    firmware updates randomly broke Weston, and that nowadays it is very
    hard to find a RPi firmware version that you could expect to work with
    Weston if Weston itself was not broken. We are not even sure what is
    broken nowadays.
    
    This removal does not leave Raspberry Pi users cold (for long), though.
    There is serious work going on in implementing a FOSS driver stack for
    Raspberry Pi, including modern kernel DRM drivers and Mesa drivers. It
    might not be fully there yet, but the plan is to be able to use the
    standard DRM-backend of Weston on the RPis. See:
    http://dri.freedesktop.org/wiki/VC4/
    
    
    
    The rpi-backend had its moments. Now, it needs to go. Good riddance!
    
    Signed-off-by: default avatarPekka Paalanen <pekka.paalanen@collabora.co.uk>
    Reviewed-by: default avatarDerek Foreman <derekf@osg.samsung.com>
    Acked-by: default avatarBryce Harrington <bryce@osg.samsung.com>
    Acked-by: default avatarJonas Ådahl <jadahl@gmail.com>
    Acked-by: default avatarDaniel Stone <daniels@collabora.com>
    ca52b31d