Discuss BIOS and Palladium Issues With an AMIBIOS Rep

After this Slashdot discussion about the relationship between BIOS biggie American Megatrends Inc. (AMI) and Palladium appeared, we got an email from AMI sales engineer (and former Linux.com contributor) Brian Richardson, who wrote, "I am a bit concerned that the information you provided misled your readers into thinking AMI was promoting Palladium or taking some sort of anti-open-source stance. This might be due to the fact that TCPA was mistakenly equated to Palladium, or questioning how Linux would run on a TCPA-enabled system ... or by the horde of angry Slashdot readers telling us they would never buy an AMI product because we were forcing standards on them." Brian offered himself up as (his words) a "Slashdot interview victim" to clear things up.(Update by RM: And, says Brian, he's happy to answer other BIOS questions as well.) So ask, already, and let's get things cleared up. (Usual Slashdot interview rules.)

Comments

Here's a simple one...

[Sheetrock]

Will Linux and other alternative operating systems continue to install and function properly on computers containing AMI BIOSes?

Re:Customization support?

[Skjellifetti]

I have mod points, but this ? is aleady at 5. It is also the most important question to ask. I am not terribly worried about TCPA as long as I can install my own keys into the BIOS and sign my own os and other software. A proprietary DRM system could still refuse to run content based on those keys and I really wouldn't care too much. But if I am prevented from telling the BIOS which keys are legit and must have my OS signed by some outside TCPA key authority in order to have access to the TCPA features of my motherboard, then I am going to be very, very pissed off about TCPA!