[meta-intel] BSP retirements from meta-intel layer

[Darren Hart]

On 3/13/14, 21:21, "Keskinarkaus, Teemu"
<Teemu.Keskinarkaus at Maximatecc.com> wrote:

>> From: meta-intel-bounces at yoctoproject.org [mailto:meta-intel-
>> bounces at yoctoproject.org] On Behalf Of Chris Tapp
>>
>> Following on from the "chiefriver BSP retirement thread", what is the
>>general
>> policy for BSP life-cycles within meta-intel?
>>
>> For example, we committed to using the Cedartrail BSP a couple of years
>>back as
>> if offered support for what was then a new platform with a reasonable
>>forward
>> buy-time. However, support for that has been dropped even though boards
>>are
>> still available using the chipset (e.g. ASRock DN2800MT) and these are
>>going to
>> be available for a few years yet.
>>
>> From our point of view it is a pity not to be able to make use of the
>>improvements
>> and enhancements that have gone into later Yocto versions, especially
>>as we're
>> continually updating our software.
>
>This interests me as well since we have been planning on using Yocto on
>our HW for a long time. We also noticed the drop of Cedartrail BSP and we
>ended up on porting it to newer Yocto ourselves which of course wasn't
>what we were hoping to get when switching to Yocto.

As for chief river, sys940x, and n450 (which I haven't yet posted the
retirement notification for), these systems are simply being supported by
the intel-common BSPs (intel-core2-32 and intel-corei7-64). So support is
not being dropped, it is being streamlined. The hardware is still
supported.

While we would like to support every platform continually, we (I speak of
the core yocto team here, not as an Intel BSP maintainer) sometimes must
decide between adding a new platform or continuing to support an older
platform. I expect this to become less of an issues as the platforms
become more open over time (as we are seeing with the graphics on the
Baytrail SoCs for example).

As for more specific platforms such as cedar trail as mentioned here, that
must be addressed the BSP maintainers. If folks are doing the forward
ports themselves, that is something the maintainers need to be aware of
and take into consideration with their support plans. Please discuss this
with them (Rebecca and Boon Leong added to Cc) - off list would be best as
this becomes an individual support issue between the customer and the
Board/BSP vendor (Intel ISG in this case).


Thanks for raising the question.

-- 
Darren Hart
Yocto Project - Linux Kernel
Intel Open Source Technology Center