[OpenPower-Firmware] Maintenance of Hostboot and OCC on Power8 platforms (was: "Dropping Power8 in op-build")

[Klaus Heinrich Kiwi]

Folks,

  sometime ago in a thread titled "Dropping P8 in op-build" we discussed
scenarios around Hostboot/OCC maintenance on Power8 configs..

On 6/18/2020 8:44 AM, Dean Sanner wrote:
> For the areas that IBM isn't willing to actively maintain (ie updating
> the compiler for P8) I'd rather let the community take over maintenance
> and not eliminate the branch.  The benefits of the internal CI would be
> lost -- but the branch would still be usable/maintainable by the
> community. Klaus, lets work with the internal IBM teams to figure
> out a solution that is acceptable to both the community and IBM.

We had a few rounds of internal discussions on the proposal above.

At this point in time, IBM's interest in the 'P8' branch for Hostboot is
only in supporting existing products in the field, and as such we don't have
resources put aside to maintain an evolving P8 Hostboot branch in addition to
the the master branch (currently P9-focused) and this "legacy" P8 branch
(where we don't want to change anything).


The proposal here is that we fork Hostboot (and OCC and potentially
Hostboot-binaries) creating their -p8 variants as new projects.

Upstream op-build would continue to use Hostboot 'master' branch for
P9-configs, but we would point P8 configs towards using 'hostboot-p8'
and such forks, instead of using Hostboot's 'master-p8' branch.

IBM would continue to maintain the Hostboot project in both 'master'
and 'master-p8' branches.


The starting point for the "-p8" forks would be the current 'master-p8'
branches from these projects, and we could apply Joe Stanley's patches
on top of them to make them build with GCC7 and consequently move towards
a newer buildroot base as well.

However, we would need a volunteer from the community to maintain those
forks, and we could also use external CI on P8 systems, since IBM wouldn't
be providing those ourselves.

We should be able to wait until about the end of the month for volunteers or
alternative proposals, but by then I want to be able to move forward with a
newer buildroot base. Volunteers can contact me directly, and I'll also
poke the OpenPower Foundation through the System Software Workgroup and the
Technical Steering Committee for help here.

With that, also do let me know if there are any questions or concerns.

Thanks,

  -Klaus

-- 
Klaus Heinrich Kiwi <klaus at linux.vnet.ibm.com>