Hi Jeff,
I want to add a featue to the makefile configuration so that a user can compile u-boot including a directory that gets compiled as a stand alone program.
This sounds like a good idea. I am developing a custom MPC8349E board that I'll submit a U-Boot patch for when its done. I also plan to build a test-suite that executes as a u-boot stand-alone application. Its not clear to me that such a test suite should also be added into the U-Boot source, since its board-specific; more so than whatever changes to the current MPC8349E support I need to get the board booted. Although, I have no intention of hiding the test-suite source code.
I figured I'd submit the board support patch, and then just maintain the test-suite locally, with an email reference in a u-boot README to anyone who wanted to get access to the test-suite code. Of course, if lots of people build test suites using U-Boot, and there is common code, I'd be happy to use it. I just haven't looked for it in the source yet. The test suite would involve programming Altera FPGAs with FPGA configurations, running pin-to-pin tests, etc.
So is this the intention of your proposal, or just another use-case your proposal would support?
Cheers Dave