OSS + ELC EU 2026

Upstreaming initial support for a new RISC-V SoC is becoming more common, but keeping that support useful, reviewable, and maintainable is still difficult. As more application-class SoCs land, a one-vendor model stops scaling.

This talk uses SpacemiT K3, the first mass-produced RVA23-compatible SoC, as a case study. It's not about what we support, but about the upstream work we did, what tripped me up, and how we got past it.

We'll walk through in-house K3 enablement work on DMA, audio I2S, bindings, and DTS. The interesting patches aren't the ones that applied cleanly; they're the ones that didn't. We'll look at where to split bindings, drivers, and DTS; how K3 hardware constraints had to be modeled in upstream terms; and how review rounds reshaped the design.

The second part focuses on working with community developers outside SpacemiT: making boards available, keeping test images reproducible, pre-reviewing patches, turning regression around quickly, and keeping the internal tree close to mainline.

We’ll share lessons practical for making new RISC-V platforms not only upstreamed once, but easier for vendors and community contributors to review, test, debug, and maintain.