[U-Boot] u-boot-socfpga repository

[David Hawkins <dwh@ovro.caltech.edu>]

Hi Dinh,

> From day one of the SOCFPGA project, we(Altera's Linux/U-boot's
> development team have made a pledge to upstream as much support as
> possible and to be as open as possible. The thought behind rocketboards
> was also a central point of information for socfpga, that would include
> patches for linux and u-boot. We've established that for linux, and now
> need to do the same for u-boot.

That's great to hear.

>> As the maintainer of the U-Boot socfpga repository you would still
>> have the level of control you want. The rocketboards repo would
>> be a location that could be used to access a clone of the u-boot
>> mainline, and as Wolfgang mentioned, your u-boot-socfpga-next
>> development repo can be anywhere you want it.
>>
> I think the point has shifted that Wolfgang wants to appoint an external
> entity to be the custodian for u-boot-socfpga-next. I contend that an
> in-house custodian(Altera employee) would do a much better job, have the
> information, and put Altera's best interest first in this job.

Wolfgang's subsequent mails have clarified this point.

A "custodian" has nothing to do with ownership, its merely
the person with a demonstrated skill for "caring" about
code. No one has a problem with you being that custodian,
but typically it is a position that is earned. So don't
stress about it too much, personally, in your position,
I would allow Marek to aid in getting an socfpga repo getting
setup and cleaned up to make your life easier in the long run.
If that aid involves him being listed as the maintainer for a
month or so, and then you take over, its no big deal.

Why let Marek setup the repo? Well, he's likely much more
familiar with U-Boot's standards, has lots of U-Boot
contacts, and so he'll fix/clean up a whole bunch of stuff
that would otherwise generate lots of needless mailing list
traffic, and result in additional effort (and stress!) for
you. So, let Marek do the hard work, and then buy him a beer
(or send him some Altera toys) sometime when you get a chance
to meet him.

> Good point. This was the problem with the raspberry-pi for quite some
> time, but those guys have done a good job upstreaming the rpi support to
> mainline. Regarding the "brand I trust", what latest feature(s) of
> u-boot are you looking for on the socfpga that is not available
> downstream and is available in the mainline?

I'll let you know when I get an SoC board :)

>> Keep in mind that Altera's track record with NIOS II and Linux
>> support will cloud the judgement of many users. I never got
>> to the point of trying uCLinux or Linux on NIOS II as I
>> have never seen clean support for that processor architecture.
>> That situation may have changed now, but the Altera NIOS II
>> U-Boot and Linux brand was tarnished by poor initial support
>> and openness.
>
> Please see here:  https://lkml.org/lkml/2014/9/8/139

Great! But note that it has taken until Sept 2014 for this stuff
to finally get resolved :)

> Your feedback is very valuable and as I've stated earlier, the Altera's
> Linux/U-boot team is committed to the community from day one. But as
> you've seen from the NIOS II past openness issue, Altera's core was not
> about openness. We've made good strides to convince the company that
> being part of the community is a very good thing. Heck, as you may have
> notice from our email address(opensource.altera.com). It's only taken us
> 2 years to get that.

We all applaud your efforts in this, thanks! This will be a great
help in getting more people to use the Altera SoC devices.

Cheers,
Dave