[meta-xilinx] Why no support for FSBL?

[Andrey Filippov]

Manju,

For 4 years we use Xilin Zynq with our hardware and never ever used FSBL or SDK. When we started in 2013 (https://blog.elphel.com/2013/10/fpga-is-for-freedom/) we quickly noticed that there is no way to distribute Zynq-based products and stay compliant with U-boot GPLv2 license - that would require to distribute binary that combines U-boot code with that of FSBL, so we had to develop our GPL code. We also included more debug features to troubleshoot bringing to life yet untested hardware. Later when U-boot SPL became available we upgraded our code to use it (again - no dependence on SDK) - https://blog.elphel.com/2016/03/nand-flash-support-for-xilinx-zynq-in-u-boot-spl/

Later Xilinx fixed the legal incompatibility by licensing auto-generated code under GNU GPL, so it is now possible to link FSBL and U-Boot code. But it still has inconvenience of dependence on non-free SDK.

Andrey


---- On Thu, 30 Nov 2017 10:57:14 -0800 Manjukumar Harthikote Matha <manjukumar.harthikote-matha at xilinx.com> wrote ---- 

Hi Mike,

On 11/28/2017 01:09 AM, Mike Looijmans wrote:
> The "open source" way is to avoid the FSBL (and in fact, all of 
> meta-xilinx-tools) and use u-boot SPL instead. All functionality 
> provided by the fsbl/bootgen flow is provided by u-boot SPL already.
> 

"All functionality" would be a blanket statement, there are many driver 
support that is officially tested by Xilinx in fsbl/bootgen flow, 
including safety and security support

Thanks,
Manju

> 
> On 20-11-17 22:08, Peter Smith wrote:
>> Hi, I’m aware of the meta-xilinx-tools layer, but this needs you to 
>> have the Xilinx SDK installed (unless I’m mistaken), I was wondering 
>> ion there were any plans to create support in meta-xilinx for building 
>> the FSBL without the need for the SDK dependency. Peter
>>
>>> On 20 Nov 2017, at 21:05, Giordon Stark <kratsg at gmail.com 
>>> <mailto:kratsg at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi (resending from right address),
>>>
>>> You can indeed build the FSBL + boot.bin using the meta-xilinx-tools 
>>> layer: https://github.com/Xilinx/meta-xilinx-tools
>>>
>>> Giordon
>>>
>>> On Mon, Nov 20, 2017 at 3:03 PM Peter Smith <salerio at gmail.com 
>>> <mailto:salerio at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>>     A question, I was wondering why there is no support for building 
>>> FSBL in
>>>     a similar way to that provided by meta-xilinx for the PMU 
>>> firmware, is
>>>     there a technical reason or is it just one of those things that 
>>> has not
>>>     yet been got around to? Thanks in advance Peter.
>>>     --
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Mike Looijmans
> System Expert
> 
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