#5565 NORM Never A: Policy for deployment of new OFW releases

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#5565: Policy for deployment of new OFW releases
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 Reporter:  wmb at firmworks.com  |       Owner:  jg            
     Type:  defect             |      Status:  new           
 Priority:  normal             |   Milestone:  Never Assigned
Component:  new component      |     Version:                
 Keywords:                     |    Verified:  0             
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 Ticket 5558 uncovered the following deficiency in our processes:

 We released OFW Q2D07 to manufacturing some time ago, but we did not
 release a bootfw.zip to allow field upgrade of secure machines.

 A suitable bootfw.zip will appear in an OS release (probably 653) at some
 point, but that leaves a time gap during which it is difficult to bring
 some field systems up to the same state that is being shipped from the
 factory (Q2D07 plus an OS build that is earlier than 653).

 In my opinion, it should be our policy to create a signed bootfw.zip for
 each official firmware release.  The definition of "official" might be
 subject to some interpretation, but any factory-installed version is
 undoubedtly official.

 We will certainly want to synchronize OS and firmware releases where
 possible, but there will be cases (e.g. the current factory run) where
 such synchronization was not practical or simply did not happen.  Whether
 or not we choose to release a standalone bootfw.zip in the synchronized
 case, we should release a standalone one in the unsynchronized case.

 We need a policy decision on this issue, and then a process step to
 implement that policy.

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Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/5565>
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