[U-Boot-Users] [PATCH] cfi_flash.c patches

[Tolunay Orkun]

Dear Wolfgang,

Wolfgang Denk wrote:

>Because there simply *is* *no* policy at all.  Especially  not  in  a
>  
>
That is not true. There are several policies already.

Just a couple of emails ago you were saying all sectors should be in 
writable state in U-Boot. This is a policy which is announced today by you.

Leaving the state of sectors (except for U-Boot managed sectors) until 
user takes explicit lock/unlock action as they are is another policy . 
This has been the policy so far which I would call "common sense" policy.

Providing software protection for flash that does not have hardware 
protection is yet another policy.

>one-size-fits-all  driver like cfi_flash which is what we are talking
>about.
>
>If you have special requirements please feel free to implement  these
>in  your  board  specific code. But don't try to enforce your special
>ideas of how things should be on everybody else.
>  
>
I am not trying to implement anything. Existing code works well for me 
(well after a couple of fixes which I submitted a patch for).

It is the new patch (not from me) that is introducing new policies and 
ways that needs to be questioned and discussed since it is effecting a 
common driver. This new patch is enforcing new ideas and policies. I've 
raised a number of issue with the new approach which you see to 
conveniently avoided. Could you please answer the following?

Why do you think it is OK for U-Boot to unlock sectors/blocks that it 
knows nothing about their usage? Wouldn't leaving these sectors in a 
safer state a common sense approach?

While you see it important to protect U-Boot environment (for various 
reasons and I agree), you do not seem to consider consistent protection 
for another area of flash that may be storing equally vital information 
for software system. Why?

Best regards,
Tolunay

Note: I had submitted a bug fix on July 2nd for a number of cfi_flash.c 
fixes. Do you still have that in your queue? I was expecting it would go 
to 1.1.3 since you picked some other fixes to go in that release. I am 
now worried that it is lost somewhere.

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=12234135