Quoting Ward Vandewege <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > The FSF would like to prepare some PR around this response an FSF supporter > got from Intel customer care representative asking them about support for > free BIOS on Intel hardware. Any thoughts from the coreboot community on > this? > > -------------------------- > Thanks for your email. > > Writing BIOS code is not like writing an OS device driver. Chipset > specifications can vary not just between chipset models, but between > steppings of the same chipset. Problems in chipset hardware and > problems in BIOS code are hard to distinguish without specific hardware > instrumentation. End user BIOS replacement with a third- party BIOS > (whether free or not) on a commercial motherboard is not allowed by > nearly all hardware vendors because of the potential for BIOS viruses > and the risk of rendering the hardware useless through ill-advised > modifications. For example, a laptop battery could explode if incorrect > power management algorithms were applied. > > BIOS is a part of the reliability and performance promise of the > hardware. Chipset specifications at the level being discussed are > commonly considered proprietary by all silicon vendors, not just Intel. > > The open source firmware work that Intel *is* sponsoring could lead to a > solution where proprietary low-level chipset initialization code from > silicon vendors is made compatible with open source higher-level > platform initialization and pre-boot management. If you are interested, > we invite you to participate at www.tianocore.org. > > Thanks once again for your interest in Intel. > > Sincerely, > > Intel Customer Support > -------------------------- > > Thanks, > Ward. > I don't know about that Ward, I think they are being a little silly on the matter. I have coreboot running on my Intel based board without exploding batteries. Sounds like some advertizing propoganda for tianocore to me:-)
Thanks - Joe -- coreboot mailing list [email protected] http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot
