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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."

8 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

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    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. 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".

  6. 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!

  7. 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".

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

    Slashdot has a bias toward stupid tech jokes in comments.

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    My other first post is car post.