[U-Boot-Users] builtin OF tree dtb gone

[Dan Malek]

On Dec 16, 2006, at 12:18 PM, Pantelis Antoniou wrote:

> As the guy that did the original implementation, my intent was to   
> keep theDTB along with u-boot.
> I don't know where you get the idea that it's more "flexible" or   
> "cleaner" tohave it on a different partition.

The problem is the dtb is still, and probably always
be changing.  My concern is even if you put the dtb
into u-boot, the next version of kernel will probably
not boot properly because the information needed
will be different.  So, to boot new kernels you need
to then update u-boot, which is something no one
is going to risk in a product.

All of these ideas are great when you are sitting
in a lab with an evaluation board, you can update
u-boot at will, or constantly change other items
in the flash.  In a real product, no one is going to
risk a software update that could turn millions of
working systems into doorstops.  Field upgrades
of existing Linux systems are already quite complicated,
and the last thing we need are even more variables
to cause problems or to track for recovery procedures.

These changes that add size and maintenance
complexity to Linux aren't popular for embedded
products.  People are starting to look again at
other, even proprietary solutions, due to overall
cost and lifetime product risk.   If we keep this up,
we are going to have the best over-engineered
and unused software around.

Thanks.

	-- Dan