Hi all,
Following some recent discussions on IRC, we've see that some people just don't like us shipping microcode in the main repository. OK, microcode is a blob, so it belongs in blobs. Let's leave that at that.
Kyösti and I are working on making all CPUs update microcode from CBFS. This is the first step in moving the microcode updates out of main. Our branches are already up on gerrit:
Infrastructure (ready for review): http://review.coreboot.org/#/q/status:open+project:coreboot+branch:master+to...
Intel branch (ready for review): http://review.coreboot.org/#/q/status:open+project:coreboot+branch:master+to...
AMD branch (ready for review/needslove): http://review.coreboot.org/#/q/status:open+project:coreboot+branch:master+to...
I've also started integrating the microcode updates for Intel CPUs in blobs. The branch is here (ready for review): http://review.coreboot.org/#/q/status:open+project:blobs+branch:master+topic...
Once ALL that is done, we can start removing those updates from master (needslove): http://review.coreboot.org/#/q/status:open+project:coreboot+branch:master+to...
This last branch is a WIP, but we should be able to have it build via Jenkins once all the other Intel stuff is done.
And once ALL that is done, we'll be able to update Kconfig such that microcode is only included automatically when the blobs repository is enabled. This separation of blobs versus free code is only logical, and the end result is more options for the user.
Reviews and testers highly appreciated. Let's get this done once and for all. Remember, this is a multi-step process with changes that are, sadly not trivial to keep track of.
Alex