[meta-xilinx] Why no support for FSBL?

[Mike Looijmans]

There are many reasons we moved away from the FSBL flow. The *main* reason is 
that we encountered various bugs (the FSBL worked okay on the evaluation 
board, but once we made our own module with different pinouts and support 
chips, the bugs started to appear). With the FSBL being non-free software 
("free" as in "freedom", not "free beer") we could not fix these issues ourselves.

A big issue with non-free software is that in say five years a customer will 
return to us and ask "hey, can you do this small addition". Chances are that 
the tools we used will no longer run on the machines we have then, and in many 
cases, it will be impossible to revive the licenses. And we will have no way 
of fixing that, other that putting our current machines in the fridge along 
with the software.



On 30-11-17 19:57, Manjukumar Harthikote Matha 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
>>
>> TOPIC Products
>> Materiaalweg 4, NL-5681 RJ Best
>> Postbus 440, NL-5680 AK Best
>> Telefoon: +31 (0) 499 33 69 79
>> E-mail: mike.looijmans at topicproducts.com
>> Website: www.topicproducts.com
>>
>> Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail
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>>
>>
>> 

Kind regards,

Mike Looijmans
System Expert

TOPIC Products
Materiaalweg 4, NL-5681 RJ Best
Postbus 440, NL-5680 AK Best
Telefoon: +31 (0) 499 33 69 79
E-mail: mike.looijmans at topicproducts.com
Website: www.topicproducts.com

Please consider the environment before printing this e-mail



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