State of ARM port

[Andrei Borzenkov <arvidjaar@gmail.com>]

It seems that distributions tend to focus on native U-Boot support for
extlinux-like configuration and direct loading of Linux kernel/FDT.
Recently it came up for openSUSE, reasons were named

1. upstream U-Boot prefers extlinux for loading, CONFIG_API is
considered edge case, deprecated. They do not consider GRUB valid reason
to maintain it :)

2. GRUB requires patching for each board to set valid link address

3. some general issues on specific boards

1 requires active commitment from U-Boot community, apparently it is
lacking. To properly fix 2 we need relocation support in U-Boot; which
again returns us to "GRUB not being interesting to U-Boot community" :)

3 depends on motivation to debug and fix issues; as long as GRUB is not
considered there is none.

So what should we do with this port?