Am 28.08.2014 23:16 schrieb Todd Weaver:
On Aug 28, 2014, at 11:26 AM, Todd Weaver todd@m2n.com wrote:
On Aug 28, 2014, at 10:59 AM, ron minnich rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
The truth here is that we NEED to have a blob-free version (libreboot), so I have a lot of work ahead of me :)
If you NEED blob-free, you may need to go ARM.
We cannot easily (actually it would be quite impossible) to move from the Intel hardware at this point.
Per the private messages, I am asking upstream if we can switch to AMD, is AMD in a state where we can attain (meaning it is possible (comparing that to Intel)) a binary free BIOS?
You can, but with chipsets/CPUs released in the last few months you may be out of luck. Right now, it appears AMD does not see compelling enough business reasons to publish the source code for the newest hardware generations, but you may be able to get the source code for the blobs under NDA. That said, there are quite a few pieces of recent (and still in production) AMD hardware which do have full coreboot support. Exceptions from the blob-free guarantee are graphics firmware and USB3 firmware, which are both not executed on the main CPU.
Depending on how big your order is (not just "enthusiasts all over the world will surely buy it", but real money spent by your company/organization), you might have some real leverage, even for getting code published.
Regards, Carl-Daniel