Open Firmware is now free [LWN.net]

Open Firmware is now free

Posted Nov 27, 2006 20:23 UTC (Mon) by jimwelch (guest, #178)
In reply to: Open Firmware is now free by giraffedata
Parent article: Open Firmware is now free

>> I don't think they would care that it's closed source.

I care about closed source for all the normal open/close reasons. The main reason's that affect me:

1. BUGS - some of my "old" computers don't do big disks.
2. DRM - some talk of only allowing certain OS's on a unit.
3. Features - LVM, boot from flash (missing on my old units), the next big hardware item (firewire disks).
4. Lack of support from the vendor to fix the above problems for old units.

Most of this is just not cost effective under the ancient proprietary system in use today for BIOS.

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Open Firmware is now free

Posted Nov 28, 2006 7:04 UTC (Tue) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

I care about closed source for all the normal open/close reasons. The main reason's that affect me:
...
Most of this is just not cost effective under the ancient proprietary system in use today for BIOS.

Those are all good reasons to care about closed source of today's BIOS, but not relevant to the point to which you are responding. That point is that with a small initial program instead of what we have today, people wouldn't care about having its source code. Such a boot program wouldn't be involved in any of the issues you list.

Getting back the OF question: The reasons listed are not only good reasons to have open source for the code that handles those things, but also for being able to update that code easily, for example with a 'cp' shell command instead of an arcane BIOS flash procedure. And in a way that if you screw it up, you can easily repair the damage. Open Firmware doesn't do any better than today's BIOS in those areas, and in fact is worse because there's so much more code in there that you'll want to update.