Hi folks, As discussed in the Feb. 21 coreboot leadership meeting [1][2], concerns have been raised about coreboot source code releases for certain Meraki switch products. Requests have been made to open-source@meraki.com (mailto:open-source@meraki.com) about this with limited success in the past (MX84, MX250), though current requests for MS350 have gone practically unanswered. Since this problem scales with the product line-up, it seems an engineering approach to get code published - preferably upstream - will be a better way to solve it rather than repeated requests or escalation to the SFC.
We're looking for anyone from Meraki/Cisco who would like to solve this by getting the code published. Several members of the coreboot community have experience working at (or with) companies in similar situations, and we're willing to help with this process. A few quick ideas mentioned in the recent meeting include a packaging tool to remove unused modules, a repo or branch on coreboot.org to host Meraki changes if they can't be mainlined easily, a license package that can integrate with Meraki's OS installer, etc.
It's great that coreboot is used on these products and we believe that the coreboot community and corporate users such as Meraki mutually benefit when everyone's rights are respected. We strongly prefer an engineering approach to compliance with the GPLv2, but will look to other options if progress can't be made.
If anyone at Meraki/Cisco happens to be reading this, feel free to contact me privately.
[1] https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NRXqXcLBp5pFkHiJbrLdv3Spqh1Hu086HYkKrgKj... (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NRXqXcLBp5pFkHiJbrLdv3Spqh1Hu086HYkKrgKj...) [2] https://www.mail-archive.com/coreboot@coreboot.org/msg58333.html (https://www.mail-archive.com/coreboot@coreboot.org/msg58333.html)
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David Hendricks