[coreboot] How to handle vbt.bin

[Patrick Rudolph]

On 2018-04-15 11:30 PM, Nico Huber wrote:
> On 15.04.2018 17:12, Patrick Rudolph wrote:
>> On Sun, 2018-04-15 at 13:43 +0200, Nico Huber wrote:
>>> On 15.04.2018 12:48, Patrick Rudolph wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 2018-04-05 at 11:34 -0500, Matt DeVillier wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 11:29 AM, Nico Huber <nico.h at gmx.de> wrote:
>>>>>> On 05.04.2018 18:15, Matt DeVillier wrote:
>>>>>>> my instinct is to put it in the 3rd party blobs repo, since it's added to
>>>>>>> the CBFS w/o modification (ie, is treated like a blob), unlike the SPD hex
>>>>>>> files which are selectively ordered and assembled into the spd.bin (ie,
>>>>>>> treated as source).
>>>>
>>>> I would like to see them in 3rd party repo, as we don't process them,
>>>> as Matt pointed out.
>>>>
>>>>>> Files are concatenated, I don't see how this is treating sth. as
>>>>>> source.
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> They are changed from ASCII/text to binary format, so yes it's a source
>>>> file.
>>>
>>> lol. I had that discussion before, and no: hexdumping something doesn't
>>> make it source (code).
>>>
>>> Is this really where you want to draw the line? can I put my ME firmware
>>> into the main repo too if I hexdump it?
>>>
>>> Btw. there is no reason to have SPDs as hex. Should we move them to
>>> 3rdparty/blobs too?
>>>
>> For SPDs: No. As you can't extract them from vendor image, can you ?
> 
> Sure I can, in some cases even with cbfstool.
> 
>>
>> For VBT: Why not. A user is free to choose to use the blob from blobs
>> repo, extract it his own from vendor image, use a VGA option ROM or use
>> the fake VBT mechanism.
> 
> Yeah, same when we add the VBT to the main repo.
> 
>>
>> The benefit of having it in blobs repo is that it increases compability
>> and user friendliness. Just tick the Kconfig option, done.
> 
> Not true, you'd also have to tick USE_BLOBS (and wonder why it's neces-
> sary in case your platform doesn't need real (code) blobs). The benefit
> of having it in the main repo is that it increases sanity and user-
> friendliness. Just leave the default, done.
> 
I guess the solution is simple. Let's not call VBT a BLOB.
1) It's not that large ~3-7KiB in times of mobile devices that have
multiple GiB of storage.
2) In coreboot BLOB is considered to contain code. VBT is only data.
3) One could argue that it's basically a key value file, where the keys
are predefined through VBT version and section IDs. Such a file is
called configuration file.

If it's a configuration file, it should *not* be placed in blobs repo.
We should also update the Kconfig option USE_BLOBS and explain that it
is only for files that contain executable code. It's not clear for me
reading the current help message.

>>
>> It is independed from a free tool to generate a VBT (which would be
>> nice to have).
> 
> Ack.
> 
> Nico

Regards,
Patrick