Wolfgang Denk writes:
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Wolfgang> Because in the general case (and this is what cfi_flash is Wolfgang> used for) you don't expect to have any hardware protected Wolfgang> sectors. Not in U-Boot, and neither in Linux when you for Wolfgang> example want to use these for a writable MTD partition.
Brian> In the general case, if I lock my FLASH to protect a Linux Brian> kernel I have there I have explicitly locked that region and Brian> I do not expect anyone to unlock it for me.
Wolfgang> This requires that your flash chips supports hardware Wolfgang> locking in the first place, which is not ger=nerally the Wolfgang> case, so your "general case" is not so much general.
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Every Intel-compatible chip supports hardware locking while no AMD-compatible does. So, for AMD you don't need any special code to have the flash in writable state and for Intel, "general case" is explained above.