Raspberry Pi bootloader blob & rpi-open-firmware

[CRImier]

ZeroPhone could offer rpi-open-firmware as an option for users.

However, there are problems I see with it:

1. The project is not actively maintained, as of now. 1.1 Even if project's state is suitable for day-to-day ZeroPhone usage (even with limitations, such as lack of support for non-crucial features), bugs will still appear, so somebody skilled needs to maintain the project.
2. There seems to be no reports of successful boot with BCM2835-based models, it seems like some fundamental issues have to be resolved before rpi-open-firmware can run on something like a Pi Zero.
3. The project's description mentions lack of features - namely, USB, DMA and lack of power management drivers. The power management, and, likely, DMA, might have to be addressed before rpi-open-firmware can be used as a daily driver.

Questions from me:

1. Can we somehow help the project? Find people, give exposure, something else? I know that I myself have neither time nor experience for it.

Notes:

• The project's communication channel is #raspberrypi-internals at freenode (I'm monitoring it)

Potentially useful links:

• http://crna.cc/b/11
• "The Raspberry Pi, en route to becoming a proper open platform" by libv (Luc Verhaegen)
• "Raspberry Pi GPU based bare metal example programs", dwelch67/rpigpu GitHub

[christinaa]

There are bigger problems with the SoC than the lack of open firmware which is why I lost interest in the project the more I learned about it and about how many corners were cut during its design phases just to ship something. I explained it in detail if you read the README there's a link to an issue regarding the status of the project.