[U-Boot] livetime of boards

[Heiko Schocher <hs@denx.de>]

Hello all,

We have the real problem, that we have a lot of old boards, which
are unmaintained in U-Boot, and we have no chance to find out, if this
boards are longer used/tested ...

So, the question raises, should we introduce a column in boards.cfg,
which shows the "livetime" of a board support in U-Boot?

If we introduce this, we init the livetime column in boards.cfg with
a value of n for all current boards, or if we add a new board support.
(n releases valid) I think n = 4 would be a good starting point.

Every release cycle the livetime value gets decremented by one.
(Can be done by a script sitting in the tools directory?)

livetime == 0 -> EMail to board maintainer, that board livetime ends.
                  please test and send an update, if board support should
                  remain in U-Boot.

livetime == -1 -> board gets deleted in next release

If a board maintainer gets the above EMail, or of course whenever
he really try a current release on a real hardware, he can send a patch,
which updates the livetime column again back to n ...

So, the hope is, we have after n releases only real tested and used
boards in U-Boot...

What do others think?

short ToDo list:
- make an initial patch for boards.cfg
- make a script, which decrements the "livetime" column in boards.cfg
   and send an EMail for the "livetime == 0" case to the boardmaintainer
   and make a delete patch for boards.cfg if "livetime == -1" ?
- add a doc/README.livetime

bye,
heiko
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