Revisiting PowerPC Support in OpenOCD

[Bill H. <bil...@um...>]

Hello OpenOCD Devs,

Thank you for your contributions to this great project!

A couple years ago I found STMicro implemented PowerPC support in their
OpenOCD Windows binary shipped with their SDK. Knowing it was GPLv2, I
asked them for their source code. Eventually they released it on GitHub
here:
https://github.com/STMicroelectronics/OpenOCD/tree/openocd-automotive-mcu-r2
(branch: openocd-automotive-mcu-r1/r2). It looks like it was developed
independently from existing PowerPC support on the OpenOCD Gerrit that I
found here: https://review.openocd.org/c/openocd/+/4337/11. A few months
ago, a colleague, Bhargab, compiled and tested this branch against an
SPC58XX, and it more-or-less worked for register dumps & flash dumps.

So, we wanted to gauge interest in bringing PPC support into upstream
OpenOCD and look for guidance on an approach: 1) gently massage the
existing patchsets found in Gerrit based on the STMicro
openocd-automotive-mcu-r2 branch or 2) abandoning existing patchsets in
favor of STMicro's branch. We would prefer the latter since this is the
second release (first was r1) that STMicro has done which indicates some
willingness for continued development there. Ideally, STMicro could bring
these changes to upstream, but we would be willing to help by taking a stab
at it. Currently no real idea about how much effort it will be either way.

In any-case, this message serves as a notification that PPC support in
OpenOCD was added by STMicro over on their GitHub page.

Best Regards,
Bill & Bhargab