diff --git a/Documentation/pinctrl.txt b/Documentation/pinctrl.txt
index a2b57e0..3e41545 100644
--- a/Documentation/pinctrl.txt
+++ b/Documentation/pinctrl.txt
@@ -736,6 +736,13 @@ All the above functions are mandatory to implement for a pinmux driver.
 Pin control interaction with the GPIO subsystem
 ===============================================
 
+Note that the following implies that the use case is to use a certain pin
+from the Linux kernel using the API in <linux/gpio.h> with gpio_request()
+and similar functions. There are cases where you may be using something
+that your datasheet calls "GPIO mode" but actually is just an electrical
+configuration for a certain device. See the section below named
+"GPIO mode pitfalls" for more details on this scenario.
+
 The public pinmux API contains two functions named pinctrl_request_gpio()
 and pinctrl_free_gpio(). These two functions shall *ONLY* be called from
 gpiolib-based drivers as part of their gpio_request() and
@@ -774,6 +781,111 @@ obtain the function "gpioN" where "N" is the global GPIO pin number if no
 special GPIO-handler is registered.
 
 
+GPIO mode pitfalls
+==================
+
+Sometime the developer may be confused by a datasheet talking about a pin
+being possible to set into "GPIO mode". It appears that what hardware
+engineers mean with "GPIO mode" is not necessarily the use case that is
+implied in the kernel interface <linux/gpio.h>: a pin that you grab from
+kernel code and then either listen for input or drive high/low to
+assert/deassert some external line.
+
+Rather hardware engineers think that "GPIO mode" means that you can
+software-control a few electrical properties of the pin that you would
+not be able to control if the pin was in some other mode, such as muxed in
+for a device.
+
+Example: a pin is usually muxed in to be used as a UART TX line. But during
+system sleep, we need to put this pin into "GPIO mode" and ground it.
+
+If you make a 1-to-1 map to the GPIO subsystem for this pin, you may start
+to think that you need to come up with something real complex, that the
+pin shall be used for UART TX and GPIO at the same time, that you will grab
+a pin control handle and set it to a certain state to enable UART TX to be
+muxed in, then twist it over to GPIO mode and use gpio_direction_output()
+to drive it low during sleep, then mux it over to UART TX again when you
+wake up and maybe even gpio_request/gpio_free as part of this cycle. This
+all gets very complicated.
+
+The solution is to not think that what the datasheet calls "GPIO mode"
+has to be handled by the <linux/gpio.h> interface. Instead view this as
+a certain pin config setting. Look in e.g. <linux/pinctrl/pinconf-generic.h>
+and you find this in the documentation:
+
+  PIN_CONFIG_OUTPUT: this will configure the pin in output, use argument
+     1 to indicate high level, argument 0 to indicate low level.
+
+So it is perfectly possible to push a pin into "GPIO mode" and drive the
+line low as part of the usual pin control map. So for example your UART
+driver may look like this:
+
+#include <linux/pinctrl/consumer.h>
+
+struct pinctrl          *pinctrl;
+struct pinctrl_state    *pins_default;
+struct pinctrl_state    *pins_sleep;
+
+pins_default = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT);
+pins_sleep = pinctrl_lookup_state(uap->pinctrl, PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP);
+
+/* Normal mode */
+retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_default);
+/* Sleep mode */
+retval = pinctrl_select_state(pinctrl, pins_sleep);
+
+And your machine configuration may look like this:
+--------------------------------------------------
+
+static unsigned long uart_default_mode[] = {
+    PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_DRIVE_PUSH_PULL, 0),
+};
+
+static unsigned long uart_sleep_mode[] = {
+    PIN_CONF_PACKED(PIN_CONFIG_OUTPUT, 0),
+};
+
+static struct pinctrl_map __initdata pinmap[] = {
+    PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT", "pinctrl-foo",
+                      "u0_group", "u0"),
+    PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_DEFAULT, "pinctrl-foo",
+                        "UART_TX_PIN", uart_default_mode),
+    PIN_MAP_MUX_GROUP("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
+                      "u0_group", "gpio-mode"),
+    PIN_MAP_CONFIGS_PIN("uart", PINCTRL_STATE_SLEEP, "pinctrl-foo",
+                        "UART_TX_PIN", uart_sleep_mode),
+};
+
+foo_init(void) {
+    pinctrl_register_mappings(pinmap, ARRAY_SIZE(pinmap));
+}
+
+Here the pins we want to control are in the "u0_group" and there is some
+function called "u0" that can be enabled on this group of pins, and then
+everything is UART business as usual. But there is also some function
+named "gpio-mode" that can be mapped onto the same pins to move them into
+GPIO mode.
+
+This will give the desired effect without any bogus interaction with the
+GPIO subsystem. It is just an electrical configuration used by that device
+when going to sleep, it might imply that the pin is set into something the
+datasheet calls "GPIO mode" but that is not the point: it is still used
+by that UART device to control the pins that pertain to that very UART
+driver, putting them into modes needed by the UART. GPIO in the Linux
+kernel sense are just some 1-bit line, and is a different use case.
+
+How the registers are poked to attain the push/pull and output low
+configuration and the muxing of the "u0" or "gpio-mode" group onto these
+pins is a question for the driver.
+
+Some datasheets will be more helpful and refer to the "GPIO mode" as
+"low power mode" rather than anything to do with GPIO. This often means
+the same thing electrically speaking, but in this latter case the
+software engineers will usually quickly identify that this is some
+specific muxing/configuration rather than anything related to the GPIO
+API.
+
+
 Board/machine configuration
 ==================================
 
