coreboot April 2017

coreboot@coreboot.org

65 participants
143 discussions

What's the relationship between ACPI and SMM?
by Iru Cai 03 Apr '17

03 Apr '17

Hello, I'm trying to write some ACPI code to support an EC. I don't know if I need to write an smihandler.c for the boards. I saw some mainboard code. Older boards such as lenovo/x200 have no smihandler.c, but newer boards such as lenovo/x220 have. Also, I don't know much about things like GPE, SCI, ..., even after I look at the ACPI specification. So can some one sort out what happens when there is a event (e.g. Lid open/close), and what the EC and ACPI OS should do. What needs to be added in the mainboard code? Thanks, Iru -- Please do not send me Microsoft Office/Apple iWork documents. Send OpenDocument instead! http://fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument/

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?
by Sam Kuper 03 Apr '17

03 Apr '17

On 03/04/2017, ron minnich <rminnich(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Could we, please, agree on what the question is; write the question; and > ask a lawyer, preferably someone involved in the CC license creation in the > first place? All this interpretation of legalese by coders is bound to end > badly. Here is the email I sent to Creative Commons. It is imperfect, but I hope will be good enough. Dear Creative Commons staff, The coreboot project is discussing adopting a CC BY or CC BY-SA license for its wiki content. A question arose about CC BY. Please can you answer it? (For the source of the confusion, see the postscript to this email.) Suppose Alice publishes her work Alpha under CC BY 3.0. Suppose Bob substantially adapts Alpha into the new work Beta that bears his personality. Assuming that wherever Bob publicly performs or distributes Beta, he notes that it is based on Alpha by Alice that was licensed under CC BY 3.0: **can Bob offer the entire work Beta under CC0**? Many thanks for your time, Sam Kuper P.S. The question seems to hinge on whether the sentence highlighted with asterisks here in Wikipedia's definition of a derivative work is correct: a "derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work (the underlying work). **The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent in form from the first.** The transformation, modification or adaptation of the work must be substantial and bear its author's personality to be original and thus protected by copyright." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Derivative_work&oldid=769964199 .) It also hinges on how exactly to interpret the yellow box at the intersection of the "BY" row and the "PD" column in the "Adapter's license chart" at https://creativecommons.org/faq/ .

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?
by Sam Kuper 03 Apr '17

03 Apr '17

Hi David, Thanks for taking the time to write this. It was very clear. In the light of your email, and the part of the Creative Commons FAQ that you quoted, I am questioning my previous position. I will clarify what it was, in case anyone is interested. On 02/04/2017, David Hendricks <david.hendricks(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 11:05 AM, Sam Kuper <sam.kuper(a)uclmail.net> wrote: > The fundamental disagreement seems to be how an adapter's chosen license > applies to the original work. Not quite. I think the disagreement has been about whether the adapter's chosen license applies to the entire adapted work, or solely to the adapter's contribution. In coding terms, I was assuming that the adapter's license applies to the body of code that results from applying the adapter's patch, but not necessarily to the patch itself. My understanding was based upon the text of the licenses, their human-readable summaries, the "adapter's license chart", and especially the first three sentences of Wikipedia's article "Derivative work": A "derivative work is an expressive creation that includes major copyright-protected elements of an original, previously created first work (the underlying work). The derivative work becomes a second, separate work independent in form from the first. The transformation, modification or adaptation of the work must be substantial and bear its author's personality to be original and thus protected by copyright." (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Derivative_work&oldid=769964199 .) I assumed all three of those sentences were correct. I.e. the derivative work is a second work that includes elements of the underlying work, though those elements may have been transformed in the process of making the derivative work. I further assumed that the only entities licensable are works, and that the only two works in the scenario described in those three sentences were the ones explicitly named as such: the underlying work, and the derived work. I now see that there is a third work mentioned, but not explicitly named as such: the "transformation, modification or adaptation" itself. In coding terms: the patch. I now also see that you and Nico were arguing that it is *this* work - the patch - to which the adapter's license applies. > Your argument seems to be that when an adapter chooses a license for their > adaptation that the adaptation's license is applied to the original, i.e. > the original work is re-licensed under different terms. Correct me if I'm > wrong in my understanding of your argument. That isn't quite what I was arguing :) I did not believe that when an adapter chooses a license for an adapted work, that this re-licenses the original work. I believed that an adapter can, unless prevented from doing so by the underlying work's license, apply a different license to an adapted work; and that this license would apply to the entirety of the adapted work. > The FAQ clarifies the relationship between the license for the original > work and the license an adapter chooses for their contribution: > "If I derive or adapt material offered under a Creative Commons license, > which CC license(s) can I use? > > If you make adaptations of material under a CC license (i.e. "remix"), the > original CC license always applies to the material you are adapting even > once adapted. The license you may choose for your own contribution (called > your "adapter's license") depends on which license applies to the original > material. Recipients of the adaptation must comply with both the CC license > on the original and your adapter’s license." Interesting. > So here's how things would play out in the Alice, Bob and Mallory scenario > you came up with: > 1. Alice writes an article, publishes it under BY. > 2. Bob adapts the article, gives proper attribution to Alice, and decides > to license his contributions under CC0. > 3. Mallory adapts Bob's article. Alice's original content is still covered > by the BY license, so Mallory must give proper attribution to Alice. Bob's > additions were CC0-licensed and have no such requirement. (Note that Bob's modifications needn't be additions: they could be subtractions or other transformations.) Thank you for spelling this out. Your interpretation does indeed seem to be consistent with the FAQ, and inconsistent with my previous understanding as expressed above and in previous emails. I have written to Creative Commons to seek confirmation, just in case I *was* correct about the risk posed by CC BY, but it seems I was not. >> The licenses, the human-readable summaries, and the CC FAQ all seem to >> me to be consistent with my interpretation. > > Mine too ;-) Indeed :) > Good discussion, but I suppose it will take somebody with access to a > lawyer to tell us who is correct, or at least who is more likely to be > correct (since as you point out it's not really settled until some court > ruling comes out of it). I'll report back if I hear from Creative Commons :) I'm sorry for how much time this has taken up. At least it will be preserved for reference in the mailing list archive, and might resolve similar confusion should any arise in the future. Thanks again, Sam

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?
by ron minnich 03 Apr '17

03 Apr '17

Could we, please, agree on what the question is; write the question; and ask a lawyer, preferably someone involved in the CC license creation in the first place? All this interpretation of legalese by coders is bound to end badly. So, first, what's the question? I've gotten lost in all this verbiage. And please, just the question. I am sure we can state the question in 15 words or less. ron

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Re: [coreboot] VGA and Graphics
by ron minnich 03 Apr '17

03 Apr '17

As for graphics startup, here's what I learned when I was doing this in 2012/2013: the kernel could start sandy and ivy with no vbios needed. However, I have been told that the veil of secrecy has started to draw a bit closer in subsequent chipsets, and that something like a VGA BIOS/GOP has to run or graphics will not work. I really don't know, I have not looked at this in over 3 years. Todd, just to make sure we're on the same page, VBT is not code, it's a table -- that's what the T is -- and you can create it any way you want. Also, as for numbers: the fastest graphics startup, by far, was when we had coreboot- based startup with configuration specialized to the chromeos laptop. How fast? At one point we had a pixel booting to chromeos prompt in 2.7 seconds, reduced from 7.7 seconds when linux did the graphics init. We've seen that the linux graphics init is highly concurrent and generalized, and that tends to mean slow. Of course this was all far faster than the 8086-mode vga BIOS supplied by "the vendor". But we were a bit surprised to see how much faster coreboot was than the linux kernel. I doubt this speed difference matters any more, since boot time only needs to be "fast enough" nowadays and 10 seconds seems to do it for most people -- plus, any 5-second advantage in boot time vanishes as soon as you go to your first web page. ron On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 5:31 PM ron minnich <rminnich(a)gmail.com> wrote: > So, I'll mention go userland one last time, for a simple reason: I have it > on good authority that at some places, saying you have a go userland > instead of a c userland checks a check box on a security checklist. I think > that's a sensible decision, having watched all the awful ways that C > programs tend to go wrong :-) > > ron >

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Re: [coreboot] VGA and Graphics
by Trammell Hudson 03 Apr '17

03 Apr '17

On Sat, Apr 01, 2017 at 07:43:40PM +0000, ron minnich wrote: > Annnnnnnd with the linux payload we're back to linuxbios :-) It was a good idea in 1999, and it is still a good idea. > For a payload chooser and such I can offer two options: > 1) petitboot has a boot menu type thing > 2) u-root (u-root.tk) is going to have a boot menu type thing, as we've > been asked to do one. Heads is coming along in usability and has a strong focus on securing the boot process through TPM measurement and using the flash security features. It fits the 4.9.20 Linux kernel + initrd into 4 MB, including all of the crypto, networking and other features. The eventual user kernel (or Xen hypervisor and dom0 kernel) are GPG verified and invoked via kexec for a slightly more secure, legacy free boot process. More docs are online and pull requests are always appreciated: http://osresearch.net/ -- Trammell

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?
by David Hendricks 03 Apr '17

03 Apr '17

On Sun, Apr 2, 2017 at 11:05 AM, Sam Kuper <sam.kuper(a)uclmail.net> wrote: > So, Creative Commons explicitly acknowledges that an adaptation of a > CC BY-licensed work can indeed be licensed under CC0 (or, at least, > that the adapter's contribution to the adaptation can be; which I note > would be the entire adaptation, in cases such as translations or other > comprehensive adaptations). > > A second derivative in such a case (i.e. an adaptation of the > CC0-licensed work) can, of course, be licensed however the second > downstream adaptor wishes, as corroborated by the corresponding solid > green "PD" row in the table. > > (Yes, I know that the FAQ also advises people using one of the yellow > cells in the adapter's license chart that they "should take additional > care to mark the adaptation as involving multiple copyrights under > different terms so that downstream users are aware of their > obligations to comply with the licenses from all rights holders." But > a *should* is not a *must*, and as is acknowledged in the previous > sentence in that FAQ, there is no technical requirement for them to do > so.) The fundamental disagreement seems to be how an adapter's chosen license applies to the original work. As I understand the original work retains its license for all downstream adapters and recipients whether it's the first, second, or Nth adaptation. Additions can be licensed under different terms, but the original material will still be covered by the original license. Your argument seems to be that when an adapter chooses a license for their adaptation that the adaptation's license is applied to the original, i.e. the original work is re-licensed under different terms. Correct me if I'm wrong in my understanding of your argument. The FAQ clarifies the relationship between the license for the original work and the license an adapter chooses for their contribution: "If I derive or adapt material offered under a Creative Commons license, which CC license(s) can I use? If you make adaptations of material under a CC license (i.e. "remix"), the original CC license always applies to the material you are adapting even once adapted. The license you may choose for your own contribution (called your "adapter's license") depends on which license applies to the original material. Recipients of the adaptation must comply with both the CC license on the original and your adapter’s license." So here's how things would play out in the Alice, Bob and Mallory scenario you came up with: 1. Alice writes an article, publishes it under BY. 2. Bob adapts the article, gives proper attribution to Alice, and decides to license his contributions under CC0. 3. Mallory adapts Bob's article. Alice's original content is still covered by the BY license, so Mallory must give proper attribution to Alice. Bob's additions were CC0-licensed and have no such requirement. >> Have >> you ever asked somebody at CC if your interpretation is correct? > > The licenses, the human-readable summaries, and the CC FAQ all seem to > me to be consistent with my interpretation. Mine too ;-) Good discussion, but I suppose it will take somebody with access to a lawyer to tell us who is correct, or at least who is more likely to be correct (since as you point out it's not really settled until some court ruling comes out of it).

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?
by Nico Huber 02 Apr '17

02 Apr '17

Hi Sam, On 02.04.2017 20:05, Sam Kuper wrote: > So, Creative Commons explicitly acknowledges that an adaptation of a > CC BY-licensed work can indeed be licensed under CC0 (or, at least, > that the adapter's contribution to the adaptation can be; which I note > would be the entire adaptation, in cases such as translations or other > comprehensive adaptations). you did it again - writing thousands of words with plenty of quotes that don't matter. But the one thing, the assumption you build everything upon, you write into a note in parentheses. It's like building a sky- scraper with a carport as foundation. Well, at least it makes it easy for me to reply in a single paragraph: I can't spot anything about "the adapter's contribution" in the license text. As the license doesn't de- fine it, I can only assume that copyright applies. And copyright doesn't magically jump over to a translator, AFAIK. Nico

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Re: [coreboot] Coreboot wiki: what license is the content under?
by Nico Huber 02 Apr '17

02 Apr '17

On 01.04.2017 17:19, Sam Kuper wrote: > In the case of both CC BY and CC BY-SA, the rights granted to the > *recipient of the licensed work* include the freedom to create > adaptations and to distribute or publicly perform them, subject *only* > to a small list of restrictions. CC BY has a shorter list of > restrictions than CC BY-SA. Perfectly summarized, yet you miss the point. It doesn't say anything about granting to change the terms. > As such, CC BY grants the creator of an adapted work the freedom to > publicly performed or distribute that adapted work under a different > license. A license is about permission, not restriction. It can only restrict permissions it granted. So again, this is only the case if the license explicitly states permission to license the adapted work under different terms. I see a pattern here: Every time you claim this, you don't quote. Yet, you write thousands of words, have a quote on every other thing. Just to hide that you have nothing to substantiate this claim. I just have the bad feeling, that you may harm CC BY's reputation. Have you ever asked somebody at CC if your interpretation is correct? If not, please do so or consult an expert before you try to give other people further advice. Nico

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Re: [coreboot] VGA and Graphics
by Todd Weaver 02 Apr '17

02 Apr '17

On 04/01/2017 05:24 AM, Nico Huber wrote: > On 01.04.2017 00:49, Todd Weaver wrote: >> On a related topic, but not related to vbios gfx; I met with >> Matthew Garrett while at LibrePlanet, and he mentioned that we needn't >> worry about graphics within coreboot or the vbios, but could just >> deliver Linux kernel and use the graphics stack from there. >> >> Can we bypass the vbios/graphics within >> coreboot and deliver the Linux kernel payload and use its graphics? > Yes, that would work. (In the case of Intel hardware) the Linux grap- > phics driver does a superset of the things the VBIOS does. Actually, > its default case is to ignore what the VBIOS did and start all over > again. (One technical detail: You'd still have to put the Video BIOS > Table, VBT into coreboot.) OK, we will research that. > However, you'd have no display before the kernel boots. That's a nit, > if you use the Linux kernel as payload but that comes with other impli- > cations. Currently, that would kill what I'd call the "legacy boot > experience". Without a payload like SeaBIOS, you can't just plug a USB > drive with a random OS on it and expect the system to boot from it. Yes, skipping "legacy boot experience" while a benefit (to avoid vbios) has the disadvantage of user control of replacing an OS with ease. So the next question is can we offer something similar after linux kernel payload? such as even a console based menu of boot options on esc? There may be existing projects I am unaware of that already look at linux kernel driven usb boot options. > Again, feel free to throw things at the coreboot mailing list. I am sending this there now. Thanks for your help! Todd.

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coreboot April 2017