Hello all,
sorry for jumping in so late in this discussion but I just want to make my opinion heard.
For what its worth, I consider "unlocking everything besides u-boot relevant code (or add something to the opposite in your board code)" as policy. I think U-Boot should provide the mechanisms, i.e. commands to protect and unprotect sectors and by correctly indicating protected sectors in the fli display.
As it seems from my perspective, these latter goals have already been achieved with the available commands. They leave sector protection to be an aspect of the hardware that is not influenced implicitely or per default by u-boot running effectively including hardware design decisions being included in the way u-boot runs.
I think Wolfgang votes against this as he expects u-boot to provide him with a common view over many boards - thus seeing the hardware protection by default rather as a design decision to be abstracted by u-boot.
Therefore I guess one question that should drive the design of u-boot code is
Q: Is hardware protection in flash chips a deliberate measure by the board designer not to be abstracted by the bootloader?
If the answer is "no" then the current design is presenting this u-boot abstraction on every board.
If on the other hand the answer is "yes" then I think u-boot should not make all flash writable by default.
Just my 2 cents - Cheers Detlev