We are pleased to announce the the Devicetree Microconference has been accepted into the 2018 Linux Plumbers Conference!

Devicetree provides hardware description for many platforms, such as Linux [1], U-Boot [2], BSD [3], and Zephyr [4]. Devicetree continues to evolve to become more robust and attempt to provide the features desired by the varied users.

Some of the overlay related needs are now being addressed by U-boot, but there remain use cases for run time overlay management in the Linux kernel. Support for run time overlay management in the Linux kernel is slowly moving forward, but significant issues remain [5].

Devicetree verification has been an ongoing project for several years, with the most recent in person discussion occurring at the Devicetree Workshop [6] at Kernel Summit 2017. Progress continues on mail lists, and will be an important topic at the microconference.

Other Devicetree related tools, such as the dtc compiler and libfdt [7] continue to see active development.

Additional possible issues to be discussed may include potential changes to the Flattened Device Tree (FDT) format, reducing the Devicetree memory and storage size in the Linux kernel, creating new architecture to provide solutions to current problems, updating the Devicetree Specification, and using devicetrees in constrained contexts.

If you would like to contribute to the discussion, please feel free to contact Frank (frowand@gmail.com) or Sean (darknighte@linux.com).

LPC [8] will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada from Tuesday, November 13 through Thursday, November 15.

[1] https://elinux.org/Device_Tree_Reference
[2] https://github.com/lentinj/u-boot/blob/master/doc/README.fdt-control
[3] https://wiki.freebsd.org/FlattenedDeviceTree
[4] http://docs.zephyrproject.org/devices/dts/device_tree.html
[5] https://elinux.org/Frank%27s_Evolving_Overlay_Thoughts
[6] https://elinux.org/Device_tree_future#Kernel_Summit_2017.2C_Devicetree_Workshop
[7] https://elinux.org/Device_Tree_Reference#dtc_.28upstream_project.29
[8] https://linuxplumbersconf.org/