Planning coreboot 4.11

[Patrick Georgi]

Hi everybody,

I'm planning to release coreboot 4.11 two weeks from today, Nov 18th.

As usual, it's a snapshot release, not aligned with any specific feature
or development. coreboot releases exist to provide synchronization
points with downstream projects, and simply to keep version numbers
(which we derive automatically from git history) meaningful:
coreboot-4.0-26987 provides less information at a glance (e.g. about
the approximate year it's from) than coreboot-4.10-1355.

We'll also use it as an opportunity to remove[0] a number of unmaintained
platforms, MIPS and AMD Fam12h, directly after the release.

Finally the releases give us the opportunity to issue a call for testing,
encouraging folks to test the hardware they have at least twice every
year on latest master.

Of course, don't test random master revisions if you don't have the
means to recover from a bad flash!

So here's how you can help (I'll do the same, but the more, the merrier):

- Test current master branch on the hardware you have around to make
  sure it's looking reasonable.

- Ideally, prepare for testing in the days before the release when
  things have settled a bit, and report a recent status to the list, IRC
  or to me directly, so I don't pick a dud as release revision.

- Fix issues you notice, or at least report them (the mailing list is a fine
  place for such reports)

- Report the test results to the board-status repository (using the
  tools in util/board_status/)

- Fill in any notable developments since 4.10 in
  Documentation/releases/coreboot-4.11-relnotes.md

- Maybe wait with merging riskier changes until after the release

Thanks,
Patrick

[0] https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/34919 for MIPS,
    https://review.coreboot.org/c/coreboot/+/36187 for AMD Fam12h