[U-Boot] QE firmware/microcode handling

[Scott Wood]

On 09/20/2012 10:22:21 AM, Timur Tabi wrote:
> Gerlando Falauto wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > following up Timur's patch on QE microcode:
> >
> > http://marc.info/?l=u-boot&m=132197537730440&w=2
> >
> > I was wondering, would it make any sense to *embed* QE's firmware  
> within
> > u-boot image itself?
> 
> There are three problems:
> 
> 1) A lot of U-Boot images are already very close to the 512KB limit.   
> We
> often have to disable features in U-Boot to get it to build  
> properly.  An
> additional 64KB would be prohibitive.

The 512K limit is arbitrary and can be changed.  It exists just to  
provide a stable start address on something that grows from the end of  
flash.

> 2) The firmware license is not exactly GPL-compatible.  The firmware  
> files
> themselves are freely distributable, but the source code is closed.   
> I'm
> not sure how that would work in a GPL U-Boot.
> 
> 3) For Fman, at least, we often update the firmware after the board  
> ships,
> which means you would need to update U-Boot to get a new firmware.   
> So no
> one might actually use this feature because they're afraid they won't  
> be
> able to update the firmware.
> 
> If you can do it, go ahead.  I would approve a patch that adds the  
> ability
> to inject a firmware binary into u-boot.bin, provided it's controlled  
> via
> a build or CONFIG_SYS_xxx option.

CONFIG_xxx.  CONFIG_SYS_xxx options are supposed to describe hardware,  
and CONFIG_xxx options are supposed to be software config.

-Scott