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Stallman Pushes For Free BIOS
An anonymous reader writes "One key area that Richard Stallman, GNU project founder, hopes to develop is an OSS-based BIOS. But his work has been hindered by PC manufacturers who haven't been receptive to the idea. Stallman told Builder AU that: 'we're looking for companies willing to cooperate with the community in this way.' On challenges facing developers today, Stallman said the worst was the proliferation of laws that explicitly ban free software for certain jobs."
Isn't it about hardware mediated DRM?
One key factor to wanting to develop a free BIOS or "BIOS-like" solution to the startupsequence is that unlike what most endusers are aware of, the BIOS is a pain. Its slow, consumes a lot of bootup time and really isnt needed much longer. A free alternative would provide the user with shorter bootup times and more control over their own hardware. BIOS at its current state are just there for hardware detection/error handling and checking availability of an OS. The LinuxBIOS-project have reduced the bootup time consumed to just 5 seconds afaik. Thats really a lot less than the current BIOSes out there. Most of todays operating systems discards whatever the BIOS provide them and probe hardware directly anyways..
"-Who said sit down?!"
-- S. Ballmer @ MSDC 2003.
An incentive like they received from Microsoft to implement Palladium, perhaps?
Yes, the current system works just fine, but the fact is that the current system is not going to be with us much longer. It looks like tomorrows system is going to be what sinister groups like Microsoft make it. One that only lets 'signed' code run. Looked at an Xbox lately?
It is this that I believe Stallman is trying to prevent.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
OpenBIOS is what you want, and unlike LinuxBIOS, it's implementing an Open Standard too, as used by IBM, Apple and Sun : IEEE 1275-1994 or Open Firmware.
Stick Men
Isn't Microsoft looking to create a nasty piece of BIOS (or no BIOS) which would lock down a system beyond the belief of most persons who aren't "well educated" WRT technology; i.e., the people who wouldn't have a need for tinkering with the system.
No. Microsoft and others have created a nasty piece of technology including BIOS modifications which, working with other modifications and additions to standard PC hardware, will not only lock users out of performing certain actions but could be used to allow total control over end user machines by Microsoft or the government (or your personal least favorite organization), regardless of how tech-savvy the end user might be.
Being smart does not make you safe.
Don't reply about how you can always gain complete control of your own hardware with enough technical knowledge and time. Read Ross Anderson's TCPA FAQ too see why that still applicable bit of security wisdom isn't sufficient to throw off the yoke of TC. Go here for all the technical nitty gritty if you're not still convinced.
What with all the talk of embedding DRM into the BIOS itself, I'm not surprized Stallman has come out with the idea of a GPL based BIOS. What happens when every single part of the computer must be a pice of 'trusted' software, i.e. restricted software. If this project goes ahead, maybe we'll all have an alternative to what an industry too scared of litigation forces on us.
Some might consider the FSF and Stallman in paticular, to be too zealous in their pursuit of a totally open system, but given the upsurge in patenting, litigation, copyrght restrictions and DMCA style laws, the computing world is becoming a much harsher place for those who want to do, what they want to do, with their own computers. At the moment we have only operating systems restricting our rights on our own PCs. What happens if the PCs themselves contain the restrictions? How far will these restrictions go? How long before PCs come with restrictive EULA and can be repossessed for (suspected) infrigement? Already we can't mod chip our PS2s. What about our PCs? When they get region locking, will we be allowed to mod them? At least a libre BIOS might affors us some protection.
I just wonder, if trusted computing comes into vouge, will a non DRM BIOS be considered a device for circumventing copyright, and get banned under the DMCA. All the more reason to get it established soon, before newer more ridiculous laws are passed.
May the Maths Be with you!
I'm one of the authors of openbios.
so far openbios runs on emulators (MOL; pearpc and qemu are in the works) and native hardware (amd64, ppc - the latter still awaiting integration, iirc), as well as various hosted modes for development (hosted on unix, from grub - which allows to work on OF support in operating systems without having to reflash the bios)
I wonder how this could be moderated insightful. The proprietary nature of BIOSes severely cripple the usefulness of PCs today and destroys their long-term value because support of modern modern hardware features doesn't get backported to BIOSes of older PCs. Some examples:
A generic, free BIOS/firmware could thus (a) bring BIOSes to new, desirable levels of functionality [see above], make (b) BIOS user interfaces consistent across heterogenous computers, and (c) finally allow consumers to choose motherboards based on hardware quality only.
gopher://cramer.plaintext.cc http://cramer.plaintext.cc:70
All you PC kiddies, who havnt used say, a sun box, dont know what you are missing.
Whilst you may think that a bios is only usefull for tweeking memory timings to get a few more FPS from games, there are loads more things that it can do. For example on a sparc you can do memory, network and scsi tests at a low level before any OS gets to mess with the hardware. You can even program in forth at the OK prompt.
The ability to boot off the network is now in place on most modern bioses, but that has come about as a direct result of having it on server class bioses for years.
The fact that there is a full on TTY driver in the sun bios, means that you can plug the serial out into a another box and have full access to all aspects of the bios remotely. This may not seem much of a big deal to home users, but to a sysadmin it could save you hours of travel. Then there is the fact that you can change bios params. from within the OS.
Modern bioses by just havnt kept pace with modern hardware. There is a monopoly by a few companies, all pushing out a similar product that has just the minimum functions to run the box.
Whilst people may or may not love Stallman due to his abrasive nature youve got to admit that without him, there would be no linux, no GNU and a lot of us would be out of a job.
So, when M$ mandates that all mother board manufacturers uses a bios like that on the Xbox, or their OS wont run on the box, who will they listen to ?? A load of linux "loonies" of a multi billion dollar corp ??
Yes we have hacked Xbox to run linux, but its been patched and the linux hacks are getting harder and harder.
Now under DMCA if you bypass a copy protection you are almost a terrorist. How many of our employers are going to run linux, if its illegal to bypass the bios to install it?
Reminds me of a cartoon in the Sunday Mail a few months ago:
Person 1: "Apparently withdrawing from Iraq will increase Australia's risk of becoming a terrorist target..."
Person 2: "Who from? Al Qaeda?"
Person 1: "No, the U.S."
Why is that so natural? It used to be, when you bought a computer you got the entire schematic and a complete description of all the hardware registers. Up until the 16-bit generation you could buy that documentation for a small price - I know, I still have my "Amiga Hardware Reference Manual" gathering dust somewhere at home.
But all of a sudden it is no longer possible. Why?
I can at least tell you this: it isn't because hardware API's, all of a sudden, have become so unique, so incredibly advanced, that just telling people about register layout would cause vital secrets to escape the company. So having gotten that out of the way, why then?
It could be argued that it is a hassle actually writing documentation. But this cannot be the problem: the documentation must still exist for those few people who write drivers today. So that isn't it either.
Then it is possible that some sort of licensing scheme prohibits the companies from actually making the information public. Licensing from whom, I wonder? Who benefits from keeping this information locked up? I won't answer this one, but I bet you can guess...
AMD has seen the light and has become the most forthcoming of all chipset vendors, so Athlon and Opteron motherboards tend to be very well supported. (VIA, by contrast, is still a problem). Tyan has a full-time LinuxBIOS engineer, and several system vendors, among Linuxnetworx, ship machines with LinuxBIOS installed.
They have solved the VGA init problem by importing an 8086 emulator that (strangely) runs faster than the hardware version in P4 and Athlon. For x86 they have a funny compiler called romcc that uses registers as main memory, for use before the memory controller has been initialized. (Opteron doesn't need it because ~450 bytes of the cache works as RAM immediately after power-up.) What the project needs most now is some institutional support, so they can run regression tests on all the hardware they support.
The project is far from dead: they are fixing to release major version 2. When will it be ready? Sooner if you help.
Now if the interfaces involve encryption, and keys are not available to free software, then certainly a lot of people, not just RMS, would complain. But it seems unlikely that this will happen, since the large chip companies make money from Linux-on-x86 sales.
You seem really keen on this, but it is false. The only way RMS contradicts capitalism is that he refuses to admit the crude monetisation of so-called 'intellectual property'. RMS instead says: ideas are not property. And our existing copyright and patent laws in fact state this. OK, at this point I have no idea what you are talking about. Free software is not going to destroy the computing industry, although it might cause some unemployment (just like other disruptive market changes). Surely "people who are smart enough and motivated enough" can cope with that.It's only going to get worse from here on out. Ironically, while the patent system was originally designed to encourage publication, it is rife with problems currently which actually encourage secrecy, because that's the only way to avoid being the target of a lawsuit over some vague concept that a competitor happened to hold a patent on. Of course, you will have your own patents on vague concepts, so it's only a matter of who fires first. The hope with the secrecy approach is that nobody fires, because in the end the only winners are the lawyers.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
With all due respect you seem to be stuck on the free as in beer. There is far more to open source that that. I particularly like that, using your analogy, this "soup kitchen" not only gives away soup, but provides the recipe so I can improve it. Or take their soup and use it in a burger recipe. And I can charge for delivery if I like!
It would kinda suck if the soup kitchens of the world put out the restaurants... I rather like eating out.
Hey buddy, you're quite free to walk into a soup kitchen RIGHT NOW and eat. Why don't you? Likely because the restaurant makes much better food, has much better ambience, much better service and also serves wine with the meal (They even have better soup!).
The problem with your analogy is that right now, the soup kitchens are making the better food, PLUS wine and a cab ride home. FOR FREE. If the soup kitchen can continue to make better food, and provide better service, good riddance to the restaurant.
But some of the restaurants are learning : Look at Novell, IBM, HP... they've got the idea : they've put soup kitchens IN their restaurants. They give the soup, and sell you tasty bread to go with it. They let you walk to the buffet for free, or you can pay to have a waiter!
If you, or your restaurant can't accept and adapt to that, well... looks like you and your wife won't be eating out much longer.
Don't be such a soup nazi! :P