In today’s FESCo meeting, in discussion of this ticket, it was agreed in principle that we should drop the release criteria references to specific lists of ARM hardware that are considered release-blocking. Instead, going forward, we will treat hardware-specific ARM issues like we do hardware-specific x86_64 issues (decided on a case-by-case basis, ideally with input from folks who know about ARM hardware).
I’ve drafted up proposed changes to the Basic criteria page to implement this change. I created a page in my user space that’s identical to the current Basic criteria page, then did my edits as a change on top of that, so you can see a nice view of the exact proposed changes. To summarize, we drop the footnotes that linked to the ARM and IoT supported hardware lists, add wording to the “System-specific bugs” footnote that clarifies it now applies to aarch64 hardware-specific issues, add a note that UEFI on SystemReady is a supported firmware type, and add a note to the “References” section with the reference for these changes.
That looks good to me, though I’m not sure if “(unlike in the past, when we had specific lists of release-blocking platforms for aarch64)” is strictly necessary. It feels like the sort of statement that is instantly dated.
It reminds me of a restaurant I remember from years ago NH whose website had the instructions “Take a left at the intersection where the giant cow statue used to be” (emphasis mine) on their “how to find us” tab.
The official name of the compliance program seems to be Arm SystemReady (ARM website), and so I would use the full name, it’s even more descriptive for people who don’t know what it is. So, from:
UEFI on SystemReady-compliant systems and virtual machines is considered a ‘commonly found’ firmware type.
to:
UEFI on Arm SystemReady-compliant systems and virtual machines is considered a ‘commonly found’ firmware type.
I also have the same remark as Stephen, I don’t like referring to the past directly from the criteria (it’s in the References section, if needed), so I’d change this:
This applies to both release-blocking architectures (unlike in the past, when we had specific lists of release-blocking platforms for aarch64).
to this:
This applies to all release-blocking architectures.