Corey Osgood wrote:
Why don't we try to talk about anandtech about the ways coreboot would help solve the problems they are wasting time on.
I've got to ask this: why? These guys are reviewers, the only thing they could do would be inform motherboard manufacturers about coreboot, and I'm fairly sure most manufacturers already know about the project.
Clearly (from the article) board vendors really listen to these guys, the example mentioned even shows how that one vendor _depends_ on a favorable review, because their market listens carefully to the reviewers' advice. The reviewers even have direct contact with BIOS developers, and they work through hundreds of issues. (Per the article.)
Maybe vendors know about coreboot, but if this very important market voice talks coreboot, merely mentioning it, or even requesting it as an alternative, there is suddenly quite concrete motivation for vendors to look closer at supporting and supplying coreboot.
And without support for Vista or even good support for XP, coreboot isn't a viable option IMO for most users.
Well, coreboot itself doesn't really care, and this is an important point to make when talking to anyone who is new to the project. All the magic is in the payload.
The major benefit of the payload scheme in this case is that "Windows support" is mostly decoupled from the hardware initialization in coreboot. We just have to make sure coreboot has enough knowledge to export the data structures that Windows needs.
SeaBIOS is already in good shape and getting better. Now is the time for vendors to start looking into it, and I am certain that those showing early interest will have a big advantage over their competition.
And help is available to get them started quickly.
//Peter