Hi
even though I am not an "ecology activist", sustainability is a topic dear to me. And it can translate into firmware world... So I am targeting this message to the audience of the two firmware communities I know and hope it is okay to do so.
March 2021 was a big date for Open Source Firmware https://www.opencompute.org/projects/open-system-firmware: that was the deadline to get
" Owners must be able to change firmware and share it -- including any binary components -- with other owners. Starting in March, 2021, OCP badging for servers will require that systems support OSF. "
That's a big step towards sustainability in the OCP world.
More generally, we should have the capacity to characterize firmware sustainability for post official firmware End Of Life.
What about the following :
level 0: system cannot evolve or be updated.
level 1: the system can be updated to a bootable minimal functionality with open community effort.It may lack some features. For instance, you can still look at your TV but lose Netflix 4K because the owners (in OCP sense) cannot get a signed Netflix TA (either updated or not).
level 2: the TAs and other binaries can be made available (signed) to the ones maintaining open source firmware projects (TF-A, OP-TEE, U-Boot...). For instance, owners (in the OCP sense) can get the updated Netflix TA binary (updated or not) and sign it for inclusion.
level 3: all firmware components are open source and can thus be community maintained.
I think : Level 2 is the right balance between business value and "ecological" goal of sustainability. Level 3 is not mandatory and not the ultimate goal.
Is this a good way to characterize sustainability? How to make at least level 2 happen ?
Cheers
FF