[RFC] Proposed location to host the firmware handoff specification.

[Dan Handley]

Hi Simon

A couple of important points:
* TF-A does not aim to replace U-Boot SPL; it aims to reduce fragmentation in secure firmware. The permissive license may not be ideal but from an OSS PoV, but it enables much wider adoption than other licensing schemes. But that's perhaps a philosophical discussion for another time!
* TF-A is only one project at https://www.trustedfirmware.org/. They are all under open governance. If the spec were hosted there, it would be in a separate project to TF-A, with separate maintainers.

Having said that, if you're still not comfortable with https://www.trustedfirmware.org/ as a location for the spec, we will consider alternatives. I'm not sure whether http://devicetree.org/ would be acceptable to all infrastructure partners (e.g. Harb - do you have an opinion?). We'd also need to get agreement from those maintainers. Ilias suggested a model similar to EBBR. That would work for us too but please note, this would mean the project being Arm governed (with external maintainers if needed) and hosted at https://gitlab.arm.com/, since Arm's OSS group no longer uses https://github.com/ARM-software.

Regards

Dan.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
> Sent: 30 June 2022 10:25
> 
> Hi Jose,
> 
> I don't think this is correct. TF-A is a project that aims to replace U-Boot SPL
> (and perhaps other components) with more closed firmware, e.g. the
> permissive license.
> 
> This spec needs to be in a neutral place, not captive of one project.
> 
> Given its close relationship to device tree, I suggest github.com/devicetree-
> org
> 
> If that is not acceptable then we should look for something else.
> 
> Regards,
> Simon
> 
> On Thu, 23 Jun 2022 at 08:20, Jose Marinho <Jose.Marinho at arm.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Arm worked to draft a firmware handoff [1] specification, evolving it based
> on community feedback.
> >
> > This activity followed the request of some members of the Arm ecosystem
> [2].
> > The spec (still at ALP – feedback/comments welcome!) standardizes how
> information is propagated between different firmware components during
> boot.
> >
> > The spec hopes to remove the reliance on bespoke/platform-specific
> information handoff mechanisms, thus reducing the code maintenance
> burden.
> >
> >
> >
> > The concept of entry types is present in the spec – these are data structure
> layouts that carry a specific type of data.
> > New types are meant to be added, following the needs and use-cases of
> the different communities.
> > Thus, these communities should be empowered to request new types!
> >
> > To enable community contributions, the specification must be hosted in a
> location that is friendly to change requests.
> >
> > We propose to host the spec in trustedfirmware.org (tf.org).
> >
> >
> > Tf.org hosts several open-source projects and already has an open
> governance model.
> > TF-A, and the associated community, rely on tf.org, and thus are already
> well equipped to maintain this specification and keep it up to date.
> > Tf.org is agnostic of any downstream projects that would adopt this
> specification (e.g. U-boot, EDK2, etc.).
> >
> > We welcome the views of the communities and want to understand if
> there are any strong objections to what’s being proposed!
> > If anyone has objections, we are happy to consider alternatives and
> associated trade-offs.
> >
> >
> > Regards
> >
> > [1] https://developer.arm.com/documentation/den0135/latest
> >
> > [2] Re: [TF-A] Proposal: TF-A to adopt hand-off blocks (HOBs) for
> > information passing between boot stages - TF-A -
> > lists.trustedfirmware.org
> >
> >