[U-Boot] [PATCH v2 3/3] image: Allow images to indicate they're loadable at any address

Detlev Zundel
2011-11-08T16:57:21Z

Hello Wolfgang and Nicolas,

please allow me to barge in at that point.

As I strongly believe that we all want to advance our software in a
technical sense and not spend time in flame wars - I am trying to think
of ways forward from the current state of affairs.

Without evaluating all the arguments individually, let me pick up
Wolfgangs latest suggestion which indeed seems like a pragmatic way
forward:

> | I suggest the following:
> |
> | - I will apply Stephen's previous patches to support relative images
> | as they are useful for people who want to use "proper" uImages
> | (containing a raw kernel image as payload) on different boards /
> | architectures.
> |
> | - If you want to boot zImages (with the kernel wrapper included and
> | thus fully relocatable), then please feel free and submit patches to
> | add support for booting zImage format in U-Boot. Then you get what
> | you want, and you can use zImages directly, without the 64 byte
> | uImage header that is only hindering for your usage mode.
> |
> | - It would be appreciated if we could get support for real uImages
> | (wrapping a raw kernel image) into Linux, then.
> |
> | This way those who want to use zImages can do so, and those who prefer
> | a different approach can have their ways, too.

My hope is that we can re-start the discussion from this - which
actually looks like a consensus.

For the unlikely but probable case of further disagreement, I propose a
vote on the mailing list as an "emergency tie breaker". As we
previously did not need to resort to such a measure, we do not have a
formal procedure ready for such a thing. Thinking about it a little
while, it would probably make sense to have people vote on the issue
that demonstrably care about the software and have invested substantial
effort in it. A natural choice for such a set people are of course the
custodians. So I would suggest to instantiate a poll among the
custodians as such a "tie breaker" if needed.

What do you think - is this a way forward?

Thanks
Detlev

--
Perfecting oneself is as much unlearning as it is learning.
-- Edsger Dijkstra
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