From 8fe2d5403fecc9d780870ac8288dd10db93112c9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Patrick Georgi Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2019 22:40:01 +0100 Subject: Documentation: Add Project Ideas document We already had such a page on the wiki, but it's outdated and the wiki is supposed to go the way of the dodo anyway. This is a fresh start to make sure that all ideas we're coming up with are still current and that there are mentors willing to support them. Change-Id: Idd68f845930bd37a2293969b9a153cf584d6d15f Signed-off-by: Patrick Georgi Reviewed-on: https://review.coreboot.org/c/30972 Reviewed-by: Angel Pons Tested-by: build bot (Jenkins) --- Documentation/contributing/project_ideas.md | 74 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 74 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/contributing/project_ideas.md (limited to 'Documentation/contributing') diff --git a/Documentation/contributing/project_ideas.md b/Documentation/contributing/project_ideas.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..0a39a88c64 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/contributing/project_ideas.md @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +# Project Ideas + +This section collects ideas to improve coreboot and related projects and +should serve as a pool of ideas for people who want to enter the field +of firmware development but need some guidance what to work on. + +These tasks can be adopted as part of programs like Google Summer of +Code or by motivated individuals outside such programs. + +Each entry should outline what would be done, the benefit it brings +to the project, the pre-requisites, both in knowledge and parts. They +should also list people interested in supporting people who want to work +on them - since we started building this list for Google Summer of Code, +we'll adopt its term for those people and call them mentors. + +## Provide toolchain binaries +Our crossgcc subproject provides a uniform compiler environment for +working on coreboot and related projects. Sadly, building it takes hours, +which is a bad experience when trying to build coreboot the first time. + +Provide packages/installers of our compiler toolchain for Linux distros, +Windows, Mac OS. For Windows, this should also include the environment +(shell, make, ...). + +### Requirements + +* coreboot knowledge: Should know how to build coreboot images and where + the compiler comes into play in our build system. +* other knowledge: Should know how packages or installers for their + target OS work. Knowledge of the GCC build system is a big plus +* hardware requirements: Nothing special + +### Mentors +* Patrick Georgi + +## Support Power9/Power8 in coreboot +There are some basic PPC64 stubs in coreboot, and there's open hardware +in TALOS2 and its family. While they already have fully open source +firmware, coreboot support adds a unified story for minimal firmware +across architectures. + +### Requirements +* coreboot knowledge: Should be familiar with making chipset level + changes to the code. +* other knowledge: A general idea of the Power architecture, the more, + the better +* hardware requirements: QEMU Power bring-up exists, and even if it + probably needs to be fixed up, that shouldn't be an exceedingly large + task. For everything else, access to real Power8/9 hardware and recovery + tools (e.g. for external flashing) is required. + +### Mentors +* Timothy Pearson + +## Support QEMU AArch64 or MIPS +Having QEMU support for the architectures coreboot can boot helps with +some (limited) compatibility testing: While QEMU generally doesn't need +much hardware init, any CPU state changes in the boot flow will likely +be quite close to reality. + +That could be used as a baseline to ensure that changes to architecture +code doesn't entirely break these architectures + +### Requirements +* coreboot knowledge: Should know the general boot flow in coreboot. +* other knowledge: This will require knowing how the architecture + typically boots, to adapt the coreboot payload interface to be + appropriate and, for example, provide a device tree in the platform's + typical format. +* hardware requirements: since QEMU runs practically everywhere and + needs no recovery mechanism, these are suitable projects when no special + hardware is available. + +### Mentors -- cgit v1.2.3