Sounds like the pre-production board is for people who can't wait until a production board with mainline Linux support is available:
> The pre-production developer board is fitted with NXP LX2160A pre-production silicon which explains some of the limitations. [...] software features will be limited with the lack of SBSA compliance, UEFI and mainline Linux support. It will support Linux 4.14.x only.
BTW, would be nice if the production board had Coreboot support, whether or not it has UEFI by default.
Coreboot isn't immediately on our radar. We have both u-boot and EDK2 running, although EDK2 needs more work.
Mainline support for the SOC is already making it into mainline and we can boot a mainline kernel with limited functionality. Getting anything into mainline is a process, but we hope to have everything supported by the end of the year.
In the comments, the company responds: "I have asked marketing and sales to update that copy. Those versions are target shipping software, which is actually bumped on the developer board as NXP has just released a 4.19 based BSP. These boards will be fully supported by all mainline support that progresses."
If they manage to get SBSA support then they will need UEFI by default. Doesn't mean they couldn't use Coreboot as a first stage loader with an EDK2 payload for all the EFI bits.
> The pre-production developer board is fitted with NXP LX2160A pre-production silicon which explains some of the limitations. [...] software features will be limited with the lack of SBSA compliance, UEFI and mainline Linux support. It will support Linux 4.14.x only.
BTW, would be nice if the production board had Coreboot support, whether or not it has UEFI by default.