[PATCH] bloblist: Drop BSD license

[Ilias Apalodimas]

On Wed, 15 Jan 2025 at 03:18, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Ilias,
>
> On Tue, 14 Jan 2025 at 12:34, Ilias Apalodimas
> <ilias.apalodimas at linaro.org> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Simon,
> >
> > On Tue, 14 Jan 2025 at 15:15, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Ilias,
> > >
> > > On Tue, 14 Jan 2025 at 01:40, Ilias Apalodimas
> > > <ilias.apalodimas at linaro.org> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Simon,
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, 10 Jan 2025 at 16:54, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Hi again Ilias,
> > > > >
> > > > > On Thu, 2 Jan 2025 at 18:41, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Hi Ilias,
> > > > > >
> > > > > > On Fri, 3 Jan 2025 at 08:15, Ilias Apalodimas
> > > > > > <ilias.apalodimas at linaro.org> wrote:
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Apologies for the formatting, replying on mobile.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > On Wed, Jan 1, 2025, 21:58 Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org> wrote:
> > > > > > >>
> > > > > > >> Linaro has decided to write their own version of bloblist from scratch,
> > > > > > >> so there is no point in having a non-GPL license on this file. Change
> > > > > > >> it, to better fit with the U-Boot project.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > Apart from the commit message being wrong, it's also intentionally provoking. There was no bloblist in TF-A.
> > > > > > >
> > > > > > > The TF-A code is implementing the firmware hand-off spec [0], which Linaro participated in the creation. The U-Boot implementation was adjusted to adhere to the same spec after the TF-A code was merged.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > The U-Boot series was [1], for reference. This was mostly about using
> > > > > > different tags and shrinking the headers. My clear understanding was
> > > > > > that we were going to try to have a single codebase, which is why I
> > > > > > changed the license.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > So, since you have a different view of events, why did Linaro write it
> > > > > > from scratch? Was it to avoid having U-Boot code in TF-A? Or was the
> > > > > > author just unaware of the original intention?
> > > >
> > > > I am not sure I am following 'from scratch'. Firmware handoff is a doc
> > > > describing a list. Raymond implemented it in U-Boot and TF-A.
> > >
> > > So in your mind, Raymond implemented it in U-Boot? Have you taken a
> > > look at 'git log' or 'git blame'?
> > >
> > > > The right way to do this is to move the firmware handoff code to a
> > > > library that can be used across projects.
> > >
> > > Not always. Probably not in this case. It has quite a bit of logic
> > > which depends on its environment. So I think it is better to have
> > > 'similar' code in several projects. Certainly, writing it from scratch
> > > (meaning not based on existing code) is not the best approach.
> > >
> > > >
> > > > > It isn't relevant for
> > > > > > the commit message, but if you can find out I would be interested.
> > > > >
> > > > > Just following up on this as I'm not sure of the status of this patch.
> > > > > Can you perhaps write your own commit message with your version of
> > > > > what Linaro has done?
> > > >
> > > > "The non-GPL license was inadvertently added, remove it". Raymond
> > > > wrote that code so I don't think he minds removing the extra license.
> > >
> > > Again, please check your assertion here. I for one am very surprised
> > > to hear that Raymond wrote the bloblist code :-)
> >
> > All of the patches carry his co-developed by or his signed off by. A
> > big portion of those are sent by you as well
>
> So here you are referring just to the patches which changed the header
> formats, not the original bloblist code.

I never said bloblist in any of my emails. I only mentioned the
firmware handoff.

>
> >
> > >
> > > But it does help to explain why you objected to my commit message.
> >
> > The reason I object to the commit message is because it's
> > *intentionally* misleading.
> > The BSD-3 clause was added by you in 6c9e3d1fc0859 with the intention
> > of other projects using 'bloblist'.
>
> Yes, that's why I added the license, since I was led to believe that
> TF-A would use the U-Boot code with some modifications.
>
> >
> > The actual firmware handoff code was added much later in e266d2731145.
> > All of the patches in that series is co-developped by Raymond. Those
> > were added Wed Dec 27 while the TF-A patches were merged much much
> > earlier. commit 3ba2c15147c in TF-A was merged Tue Jul 25
>
> The original bloblist impl was in 2018:
>
> commit 9f407d4ef092c2ce7ab0f4f366aee252611dab3c
> Author: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
> Date:   Thu Nov 15 18:43:50 2018 -0700
>
>     Add core support for a bloblist to convey data from SPL
>
>     At present there is no standard way in U-Boot to pass information from SPL
>     to U-Boot proper. But sometimes SPL wants to convey information to U-Boot
>     that U-Boot cannot easily figure out. For example, if SPL sets up SDRAM
>     then it might want to pass the size of SDRAM, or the location of each
>     bank, to U-Boot proper.
>
>     Add a new 'bloblist' feature which provides this. A bloblist is set up in
>     the first phase of U-Boot that runs (i.e. TPL or SPL). The location of
>     this info may be in SRAM or CAR (x86 cache-as-RAM) or somewhere else.
>     ...
>

So the tl;dr is that when the firmware handoff code was added in TF-A,
there was no u-boot implementation. It all got added afterwards.
The way the development happened is that Raymond implemented the TF-A
code, and also plugged in the transfer mechanism so we use that info.
The fact that there was a similar implementation in U-Boot, which did
not adhere to the standard to begin with doesn't justify your commit
message. As I said we didn't decide to write a 'bloblist' we
implemented the spec in TF-A.

/Ilias

> Regards,
> Simon