[U-Boot] [PATCH 1/2] SPL: Add YMODEM over UART load support

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Scott Wood,

In message <4F29811D.5080207 at freescale.com> you wrote:
>
> What's the alternative -- another name and separate makefile
> infrastructure for non-minimal initial loaders?

No, configura and use a small U-Boot image where the normal execution
environment can be guaranteed.

> It's important that SPL be *able* to produce very small images when
> needed, but its purpose has grown beyond that.

But it's restrictions have not.

You know how things work - people take exsiting code examples from
one system and expect them to work on another - and they don't.

The SPL code that works fine today breaks tomorrow because someone
changes some part of code in an apparently unrelated area of the
code.  He could not know his changes would cause trouble  because this
code was not meant to run in restricted environments. Etc. etc.

We once had a very strict rule for which code was allowed before
relocation (or you may call it in "regular U-Boot enviropnment"), and
which was not.  We are starting to obliterate these boundaries.
This is dangerous, and once you start, impossible to control.

It was a mistake of mine to allow the use of malloc() in this
environment.  I am not willing to let this grow out of control.


If such fancy features are needed in the SPL, then new methods must be
developed that give the user a clear indication if what he is doing is
actually legal and will result in working code.  I don't have a
solution for this, but I am convinced that this approach is wrong, and
should be stopped rather now than later.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

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