On Sun, Jun 13, 2021 at 9:45 AM Marcin Juszkiewicz wrote:
Let me bring the idea on this list that, maybe, it is time for vendors
to start looking into moving away from using good old U-Boot on microsd
or similar to provide on-board SPI flash to store bootloader. So we
could stop distributing special installable images for platforms like
the Pi.
Storing boot firmware on the board seems to encourage various
sub-optimal things. Fully proprietary bootloaders. GPL violating
bootloaders. Bootloaders containing blobs. Bootloaders that are locked
down and cannot be replaced at all, especially on mobile. Forks of
random snapshots of existing bootloaders.
Personally I would go the other way; there should be a standard boot
protocol between the SoC boot ROM and later layers of the boot process
and vendors should stop shipping any boot firmware beyond the SoC boot
ROM, leaving it to OS distributors to package mainline bootloaders
that support that protocol.