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More Power To The Firmware
An anonymous reader writes "In More Power To The Firmware Amit Singh talks about technical details of EFI, the next-gen BIOS replacement standard Intel, Microsoft and others are pushing. This is a very informative piece where he talks of issues with legacy BIOS, how it affects those who develop in the firmware environment and how EFI plans to solve these problems. EFI usage examples are included, including a programming example. He contrasts EFI with Open Firmware as well. IMO the second half of the article is even more interesting, where sample FORTH code is provided for displaying a window/mouse pointer GUI inside the Apple/Mac firmware! And of course, there's code for a new 'Towers of Hanoi' animation using the Mac firmware (remember Hanoimania?). Aspiring Mac Firmware Hackers could also check out the suggested projects ;-)"
We don't need DRM built into the BIOS, and that's exactly what would happen if Microsoft had a say in it.
I agree that we don't need more complexity. Let the OS handle the hardware as much as possible.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Glad to see there is attention being paid to the firmware end of things both commercially and as open source - that's one area your average geek is a little leary of toying with, due to Inoperative Hardware potential.
What I always worry about is the non-techical end of these things. BIOS level control on what software a computer can run is a much harder obstruction to overcome than things like driver issues. I wonder if they won't use the "Next Generation" mantra to say this is the perfect time to pass legislation that requires DRM control be built into all computational devices. OpenBIOS wouldn't be of much use if DRM laws require a closed system.
Also, if firmware gets too smart, you might get things like a DVD drive refusing to play a movie unless your operating system can guarantee it that you computer doesn't have the ability to copy content illegally.
When you can program games in BIOS level systems, I start to get a little wary. Keep my BIOS to the minimum please - configuration options needed to handle my hardware (things like boot order, low level configuration options the OS shouldn't know about, etc.) should be all the capability needed. A BIOS should be simple, efficient, and stick precisely to its job. I've got an OS for the rest. If the new system is good for that type of work, excellent. But if the hardware starts getting too smart for its own good, then I might wind up hauling out those two Sun Ultra 1s I bought - they should run more or less forever and I'll live with slower speeds in order to stick with a consumer friendly machine.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
You do realize that once this is in place, the **AA will convince Congress that only pirates, criminals, and terrorists would possibly want a computer without a "trusted" BIOS, don't you? Non-trusted hardware will go the way of Macrovision-free VCRs and Broadcast-flag-free HDTV tuners. When all of the Linux users and OS hackers raise holy hell, the response will be:
Jack Valenti: "These people are just a fringe nitch. Why should we threaten our precious content just to cater to the whims of a few people?"
Bill Gates: "The 'Trusted Computing Consotium' has made available [closed, blackboxed, and encrypted] APIs to the 'trusted hardware' industry spec. Why can't Linux use them just like any other OS?"
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