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Stallman Calls For Action on Free BIOS

Posted by Hemos on from the fighting-the-good-fight dept.

Dolda2000 writes "Seeking to achieve 100% software freedom, RMS is now calling for action for a free BIOS. From the article: "The most uncooperative company is Intel, which has started a sham 'open source' BIOS project. The software consists of all the unimportant parts of of a BIOS, minus the hard parts. It won't run, and doesn't bring us any closer to a BIOS that does. It is just a distraction. By contrast, AMD cooperates pretty well." For reference, there are currently two projects for a free BIOS that I know of: LinuxBIOS and OpenBIOS."

10 of 487 comments (clear)

  1. Oi boy am I going to get moderated down for this.. by sandstorming · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds like bias in bios

    --
    http://www.sandstorming.com
  2. New Features by adennis · · Score: 2, Funny

    That'll be great to get a really good Open Source BIOS - we'll have new features and capabilities not ever thought of before: who knows, maybe we'll see a Nintendo Emulator for our POST...

  3. Re:Does Anyone KNow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    > Does Anyone know what Intel gets out of not opening it up?

    Yes, they don't want to be called GNU/Intel.

  4. ObLinusQuote by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    "Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's _my_ choice, dammit." (Linus Torvalds, October 26, 2004)

  5. Why the BIOS will never be Open Source by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    As many of you already should know; creating a fully usable BIOS takes more than just programming code. A certain amount of magic is also needed. Magic is not, has never and will never be open source. Magic is closed source for many good reasons.

    Microsoft knows magic. Linus Torvalds, RMS et al. does not.

    I predict that Microsoft will create an XP based BIOS is the near future.

    Magic, BIOS, Microsoft. Let's have som cake.

  6. Upcoming Slashdot article: by harris+s+newman · · Score: 3, Funny

    RMS, seeking 100% freedom, calls for a free governement. He was quickly carried off to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba for what was called a "debriefing". Knowledgable sources have stated that he will be released "someday".

  7. Re:It's my flashBIOS chip... by TedCheshireAcad · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's exactly why a Free bios is necessary. I am typing this up in a Free Software browser (Konqueror) in a Free Software window manager (KDE), which run on top of a Free Software graphical manager (X), which runs on top of a Free Software system (Gnu), which runs on top of a Free Software kernel (Linux), which is booted by a Free Software boot loader (Grub).

    I bet you have an erection, too. I'm typing this in my commercial browser, on a commerical operating system, running on all-types-of-closed Apple hardware, and it feels soooo good!

  8. Re:It's my flashBIOS chip... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    But, except for all those things, it really does nothing.

  9. In a few months... by dcrocha · · Score: 2, Funny

    after the first release of a GPL'd BIOS, I bet RMS will get pissed off about the new BIOS being called "FreeBIOS" instead not "GNU/FreeBIOS".

  10. that's okay... by Cryptnotic · · Score: 2, Funny

    Slashdot has a bias toward stupid tech jokes in comments.

    --
    My other first post is car post.