Hi Detlev,
Oops, I did not know it is intentionally to keep the external apps API as it is now.
I am working on an open source secure bootloader based on U-Boot. Mostly I wrote boot logic (by boot logic I mean prompting user and listing available devices sort of things). If you see U-Boot as a platform, you can think of my project as an application running on top of U-Boot, except that my application is statically linked with U-Boot.
The boot logic is running on ARM and x86. Through the project I have learned that certain APIs would be helpful, such as enumerating all available block device and drawing bitmaps on screen regardless of which driver (video or LCD) you are using.
It was probably a misleading finding when I searched the code base: I saw only the external apps API implemented an API for enumerating available block device. So I thought improving the external apps API was the right place to go.
Alternatively (if not go the external apps API), we could have like common/cmd_enum_block_dev.c that does what I am planning to do, and I am happy to do this. What do you think?
Regards, Che-Liang
On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 12:06 AM, Detlev Zundel dzu@denx.de wrote:
Hi,
struct device_info in api_public.h defined its own subset of attributes of block_dev_desc, which limits the capability of external apps.
This patch set let external apps access the same set of block device attributes as U-Boot.
Generally speaking, we are intentionally limiting our API to external applications. It should be easier to extend U-Boot itself (and everybody will profit from the new code under a free license) rather than writing proprietary applications.
Can you pleas tell us what the intention of the extension is? We surely will not accept patches gradually exposing all of the U-Boot internals through the API and paving the way for proprietary applications. So every extension has to be balanced and discussed.
Thanks Detlev
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