2024-01-10 - coreboot Leadership Meeting Minutes

# 2024-01-10 - coreboot Leadership Meeting Minutes

## Attendees
Martin Roth, Mina Asante, David Hendricks, Werner Zeh, Felix Singer, Max Brune, Felix Held, Matt
DeVillier, Ahmed Elgogary, Nico Huber, Nicholas Chin, Patrick Georgi, Jonathon Hall, Daniel Maslowski,
Simon Glass, Jay Talbott.

## Open Action Items

* 2024-01-10
  * [Open] Werner: Push patch based on https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/522
  * [Open] Daniel: Look at how we want to localize (non console) strings for coreboot. Long term
project.
* 2023-12-13
  * [Open] coreboot admins: Look at moving services off of stefan’s server.
    * [Moving coreboot services off of Stefan’s server]
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/12aHuukgIRiS-9XlrqLFwVj1KqtYG_qih1yGX1E-D...)
* 2023-11-01
  * [Open] Martin: Shallow submodules - document & test, then update submodules if testing goes well.
Additionally look at whether the .branch option helps.
    * No progress yet
* 2023-10-18
  * [Started]
(https://mail.coreboot.org/hyperkitty/list/[e-mail]/thread/MMV2I...
JEE/)MattD and WernerZ: Work on compiling a list of website requirements from the mailing list.
    * No feedback yet - Matt will continue to gather feedback.
    * Probably have all of the community input - Need to capture the requirements as a starting point.
    * Move to next year.
  * [On hold] [pending requirements] MartinR & FelixS: Build a POC front page.
  * [Open] Arthur: Ask Philip about how to use company logos.
* 2023-10-04
  * [Started] (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Z8igNdgBG5_Qlr4kKRtlbpKaZo9RUghRqZjHUNUO...)
Martin: Write a tutorial for gerrit - Feel free to help.
  * [Open] OSFF: Look into making a video about using gerrit.
    * Discussed with Christian who felt this was a good plan.
    * Look at next year.
  * [Open] Martin: Write a document about vendorcode submodules.
    * Not started

## Minutes:

### [Martin/others] Look at writing a doc stating what coreboot is
  * It’s been argued that this shouldn’t be called a “spec”, but Daniel Maslowski pointed out that
coreboot is being defined by others as something that we aren’t, because we don’t have a good
definition of what we are. Whatever we want to call it, it seems like a good plan to have
*something* discussing what coreboot is.
    - Max: Is the target audience managers?
    - Daniel: The main idea is to give a definition, explain what coreboot is and does. Look at ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coreboot (Not up to date)
      - It covers DRAM init in a larger paragraph
      - Which is what coreboot mainly means - plus e.g. some MSRs on x86
      - We leave everything else up to the payload.
      - The way we look at the hardware ecosystem is different from others. We’re more platform
(mainboard) oriented, whereas e.g. U-Boot is more SOC oriented. We should provide an entry point to
understanding.
      - See also https://github.com/platform-system-interface/psi-spec 
    - Felix Held: coreboot is now more SOC oriented.
    - David: U-Boot has a lot more mainboard specific code in the SOCs than coreboot does.
    - David: Having this document can be an advantage for coreboot.
    - Admins: Daniel, David
    - Martin will create a doc - [coreboot definition]
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bMA19Cm5BMSVwZ1xFRn3pk_wSFIfSTaUY-94BLsh...)
    - First draft in 6 weeks (Feb 21).

### [Martin] Localization of non-console strings for coreboot
  * With the addition of an early display, we’re looking at printing text to the screen directly from
coreboot. Localization is being added for this, but the current patch uses the localization code
from vboot. This isn’t a security related feature so shouldn’t depend on the rest of VBOOT being
enabled. https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/79054
  * We also just had an RFC about storing setup engine strings. It seems like we’d want to make sure
that whatever plan we have in place also supports localization for those strings as well.
  * How do we want to handle localization in coreboot? It seems like we’re going to be adding more
strings that will be presented to the user.
Werner: Do we want to concentrate on the current character set (Latin)?
  * Daniel:
   * Lots of dimensions here
   * Need translators, people understanding coreboot and/or connected to the community
   * E.g. openSUSE has a whole translation team.
  * Martin:
   * I don’t think we need to actually translate, just make sure we have the capability. This is for
early display strings and the setup strings. Preparing for setup screen.
   * See also: https://archive.fosdem.org/2022/schedule/event/fw_settings_and_menus/ 
    * Leader: Daniel

### [SimonG] Coreboot Control Block again
  * [Link] (https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/77712)
    * Martin: Julius asked to put off discussion.
    * Simon: Julius seems to be against the proposal, I’m interested in what others think.
    * Martin: If people need it, it’s not intrusive, and it can be disabled I don’t see a problem.
    * MaxB: Issue with the patch and having moved things around. Julius’ other issue is that he doesn’t
really see the use case, and I tend to agree. I haven’t seen this issue. I probably wouldn’t ever
use this.
    * Matt: The main use case is troubleshooting a production image. CrOS images ship with console
disabled, so there’s no way to debug the image. Sometimes you just want console enabled without all
the other baggage of a console enabled build.
    * Nico: The current proposal is more invasive because it needs to be available before CBFS? (Simon:
Yes) Is it too invasive for the minimal use case? CBFS should work too, just not on devices with
early CBFS access. It increases complexity.
    * MaxB: Not against the idea, but the implementation is intrusive. Don’t do much in bootblock.
    * FelixS: Would it be possible to handle the option over chromeEC? Yes, though the EC isn’t
available at the start of bootblock.
    * Martin: Let’s be inclusive and not block changes just because it’s not our use case.
    * Werner: This is a switch to enable/disable console very early, correct? Can we do that from a
flashmap region instead of CBFS? Can we just use a hardcoded address in SPI? (Simon: Yes, on x86 -
in a sense, that’s what we’re doing).
    * MaxB: move CBFS earlier? Currently we only need it at the end to load the next stage.
    * Patrick: Previous discussion about approaches to this:
(https://review.coreboot.org/plugins/gitiles/coreboot/+/refs/changes/85/54385...
es/2021-05-selectable-serial-console.md)
    * Ahmed: Why isn’t the EC available at bootblock? (Simon, A message needs to be sent to the EC. It
becomes available during bootblock. The issue isn’t whether the EC is running, just whether we can
send a message).
      * David: Prefer to avoid EC dependencies since that will severely limit the usefulness of this
feature.

### [Martin] Setup Option Table implementation in YAML
  * The initial plan was to use Kconfig syntax to generate the data for the tables, but even though
Kconfig was designed to create a menu, there are significant differences between the Kconfig menus
and what we’re trying to do here. The biggest difference is how we handle enabling menus. Kconfig
is designed to include *ALL* values, and hide entries based on a current value. The SOT menu should
completely exclude data that isn’t relevant to a system from the data structures. This can be
handled, but this difference makes Kconfig less than ideal.

### [Martin] `region_overlap()` function might not work as expected due to an integer overflow in
`region_end()` function
  * Bug 522 - https://ticket.coreboot.org/issues/522
  * Looking for someone to take issue and push a patch. Issue gives an invalid result for an invalid
input. Might be more useful to verify where the input is coming from? Max & Nico: Not sure this is
an actual issue.
  * Werner - will push a patch based on their bug.

### Future of coreboot servers
  * We have an open action item on moving coreboot services off Stefan’s box. Other considerations
have been to outsource some of the services we have so we can concentrate on doing a better job on
everything else.
    Moving services off Stefan’s box makes it more feasible to build an admin team with full access,
without putting Stefan’s other stuff on the service at risk.
   There has been some time to look for alternative hosting options, but given our priorities (e.g.
to keep Gerrit as review system), no outsourced option looked like a good fit (while also actually
offloading work)
    * [Jay] Did Martin ever get the server hardware from Marc Jones?
    * [Jay]: Marc says yes.
    * Yes, It’s in my garage, I need to finish getting it set up.
    * Martin: It was suggested that we could switch to Github for our CI. This *could* be free - 
    * Felix: isn’t sure that it would be free for a big project like coreboot.
    * Matt: Ran into this issue when working on HEADS - Way too many limitations.
    * Nico: What’s the timeframe? (Martin - not decided yet). We can look at how much it takes in terms
of resources, then look at running it at a cloud service.
    * Felix: Why run it on a cloud service instead of a dedicated hardware? That can be expensive
    * Nico: Just lets us get away from maintaining the server. It doesn’t need to be expensive.

### [Martin] Swag / Merch for FOSDEM
  * Ordered 24 beer glasses to take to FOSDEM. Will coreboot reimburse? Who should get these?
coreboot can reimburse for the order
Who gets them?
Martin: Top devs day 1, any dev day 2?
    * Werner: Let’s see how this goes and change next year as needed.

## Completed Action Items
  * [Done] [Started](https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/78832) Martin: Work on clang-format
config update.
    * We can use the clang format version from the coreboot toolchain.
      *  Some issues with clang format - martin will present.
    * See CB:78833 for what the current format’s changes will look like.
      * [David] #defines for bits in headers lose their indenting. Maybe we should have clang-format
ignore headers for now. Smaller issues can be handled on a "use your best “judgement" basis.
    * [Done] Martin to add bitfield example to 78833
    * Let’s look at running this just for .c files to start with.
  * [Done] PatrickG, FelixS, MartinR: Look at improving the responsiveness of gerrit.
    * This had a number of causes, mostly related to running out of storage, as well as both of the
NVMe drives going bad. We’ve reduced the amount of data being saved by jenkins and replaced the
NVMe drives.

# Next meeting
  * January 24, 2024.
    * [Meeting link](https://meet.google.com/pyt-newq-rbb)
    * [coreboot Calendar](https://coreboot.org/calendar.html)

# Notice
  * Decisions shown here are not necessarily final, and are based
on the current information available. If there are questions or comments
about decisions made, or additional information to present, please put
it on the leadership meeting agenda and show up if possible to discuss
it.
Of course items may also be discussed on the mailing list, but as it's
difficult to interpret tone over email, controversial topics frequently
do not have good progress in those discussions.  For particularly
difficult issues, it may be best to try to schedule another meeting.

# coreboot leadership meeting minutes
  * https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NRXqXcLBp5pFkHiJbrLdv3Spqh1Hu086HYkKrgKj...