Re: [PATCH 2/2] hwmon: ltc4296-1: add driver support

[Guenter Roeck <linux@roeck-us.net>]

Hi,

On 10/25/24 04:56, Antoniu Miclaus wrote:
> Add support for LTC4296-1 is an IEEE 802.3cg-compliant,
> five port, single-pair power over Ethernet (SPoE), power
> sourcing equipment (PSE) controller.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Antoniu Miclaus <antoniu.miclaus@analog.com>
> ---

...

> +	hwmon_dev = devm_hwmon_device_register_with_groups(&spi->dev,
> +							   spi->modalias,
> +							   st, ltc4296_1_groups);

New drivers must use the the with_info() hardware monitoring API.

The API use is inappropriate: _enable attributes are supposed to enable
monitoring, not a power source. The hardware monitoring subsystem is
responsible for hardware _monitoring_, not control. It can be tied to
the regulator subsystem, but even that seems to be be inappropriate here.
I think the driver should probably reside in drivers/net/pse-pd/.
That doesn't mean it can not support hardware monitoring, but that
isn't really the chip's primary functionality.

Yes, I see that we already have ti,tps23861 in the hardware monitoring
subsystem, but that may be just as wrong.

I am copying the PSE subsystem maintainers and mailing list for advice.

Thanks,
Guenter