Re: coreboot's role in the boot process -- is it time for a coreboot spec?

Hi Julius,

On 28.11.23 03:31, Julius Werner wrote:
> Sounds to me like what you're asking for is really documentation, not
> a spec?

well, yes and no. It would be documenting what we did all along.
But also serve as a blueprint for coreboot.

I'm not all set on the term. I think it fits, even if it isn't
what low-level developers would expect. But it seems more impor-
tant to define (if not specify) what we think a coreboot should
look like.

> Or maybe project-internal rules about what individual platform
> code may and may not do (but that's still not really a spec)?
>
> In my understanding, a specification is always something defining a
> standard that allows interoperability _between_ different
> implementations.

It can be, but it can also be about interchangeability. When you
specify a product, for instance, you may want different manufacturers
to produce it, without making a difference for the consumer.

> Something that only applies to a single
> implementation (i.e. a single code base) can't really be a
> specification.

But there are different implementations of coreboot. Every time some-
body does a bigger experiment on a local branch, that's a different
coreboot. Or would you say it's still a single implementation when
it shares 50% of the code base? 20%? 10%?

> Making a "coreboot specification" would mean that
> someone else could then take that and implement their own "coreboot"
> in a completely separate cleanroom code base from scratch, and I don't
> think that makes sense.

I don't like superlatives. I don't think it needs to be "completely
separate". For instance, when somebody discusses coreboot for a new
platform behind closed doors[1]. And they implement something on the
same code base. If they did that according to spec, it would be more
likely to get accepted upstream, wouldn't it?

Nico

> (We could create a specification for the
> coreboot payload handoff interface (i.e. coreboot tables) so that
> other people could write their own firmware stack that can run
> coreboot payloads. I don't think that would make much sense, though.
> If we wanted payload interoperability we should probably rather attach
> to one of the various other "universal payload" proposals that were
> going around, although we've had discussions about that before where I
> at least argued that I don't think that makes much sense for
> coreboot.)

[1] Let's not discuss if that should happen.

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