Add support for a project directory

Ok, I had a look, and I'm going to NAK this.

All what this stuff is adding can already be done with the current Buildroot, by putting the configuration files in a board/something/foo directory, and adjusting the Buildroot configuration. It just adds a useless layer with a fuzzy concept of "project" that we had in the past, and was a terrible idea.

Moreover, the introduction text states that "Many buildroot users prefer to keep their project's customizations separate from buildroot itself", but the patch set doesn't solve this problem at all:

* Custom packages are not taken into account

* Additional patches added to existing packages are not taken into account

* Modification to the recipes of existing packages are not taken into account. And it is very common for a project that you need to slightly upgrade or adjust the recipe of a few existing packages.

So even with this additional complexity, the most annoying problems are not solved. So I really do prefer to keep things as it is: people have to use version control systems to keep their changes cleanly separated from the base Buildroot version. A half-working solution is not going to help our users to understand how to properly use Buildroot.

If we want to really separate the project specificities, then we need to introduce a real concept of "layers" like OpenEmbedded has, which allows to also override package recipes, add new custom packages, etc. But I am not sure we want to go down this road.

Best regards,

Thomas

Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com