1coreboot 4.1 release notes 2========================== 3 4Dear coreboot community, 5 6It has been more than 5 years since we have "released" coreboot 4.0. 7That last release marked some very important milestones that we 8originally prototyped in the abandoned LinuxBIOS v3 efforts, like the 9coreboot filesystem (CBFS), Kconfig support, and (strictly) separate 10device trees, build logic and configuration. 11 12Since then there have been as many significant original developments, 13such as support for many new architectures (ARM, ARM64, MIPS, RISC-V), 14and related architectural changes like access to non-memory mapped SPI 15flash, or better insight about the internals of coreboot at runtime 16through the cbmem console, timestamp collection, or code coverage 17support. 18 19It became clear that a new release is overdue. With our new release 20process only slowly getting in shape, I decided to take a random commit 21and call it 4.1. 22 23The release itself happens at an arbitrary point in time, but will serve 24as a starting point for other activities that require some kind of 25starting point to build on, described below. 26 27Future releases will happen more frequently, and with more guarantees 28about the state of the release, like having a cool down phase where 29boards can be tested and so on. I plan to create a release every three 30months, so the changes between any two release don't become too 31overwhelming. 32 33With the release of coreboot 4.1, you get an announcement (this email), 34a git tag (4.1), and tar archives at http://www.coreboot.org/releases/, 35for the coreboot sources and the redistributable blobs. 36 37Starting with coreboot 4.1, we will maintain a high level changelog and 38'flag days' document. The latter will provide a concise list of changes 39which went into coreboot that require chipset or mainboard code to 40change to keep it working with the latest upstream coreboot. 41 42For the time being, I will run these efforts, but I'll happily share 43documentation duties with somebody else. It is a great opportunity to 44keep track of things, learn about the project and its design and various 45internals, while contributing to the project without the need to code. 46 47Please contact me (for example by email or on IRC) if you're interested, 48and we'll work out how to collaborate on this. 49 50The process should enable users of coreboot to follow releases if they 51want a more static base to build on, while making it easier to follow 52along with new developments by providing upgrade documentation. 53 54Since moving away from a rolling (non-)release model is new for 55coreboot, things may still be a bit rough around the edges, but I'll 56provide support for any issues that arise from the release process. 57 58Patrick 59