How RoboIDE manages firmware shipping:

*** FORMAT ***
To allow for future changes in the number of files required to be
shipped, the firmware shipping system is agnostic about the format of
the firmware file submitted.

It will, however, only accept a single file for each firmware release.
Therefore, if each firmware release consists of multiple files, it
must be packaged in an archive of some sort.  Uncompressed tar is
sensible, since RoboIDE will perform compression at the time of
packaging.

Firmware can be in one of the following states:

 o ALLOCATED
    This firmware ID has been allocated, but no firmware image has yet
    been submitted.
 o DEVEL
    The firmware image has been uploaded. 
 o TESTING
    The firmware image has been submitted for testing.
    Only one firmware image per board may be in this state.
 o SHIPPING
    The firmware image is being distributed.  A number of people have
    successfully tested the firmware.  That number is configurable.
    Only one firmware image per board may be in this state.
 o FAILED
    The firmware failed some tests.
 o OLD_RELEASE
    The firmware has been superceded by a new release.
 o SUPERCEDED
    The firmware image was superceded by a new version before it could
    be tested.

Each firmware image has a 16-bit ID.