I've been lurking for a couple of months and like what I see. I am also interested in some recent comments disparaging EFI, as well as recent posts (apparently) from hardware vendors asking how to support LinuxBIOS on their platforms. After reading through the FAQ again and not finding answers to my questions, I now turn to the list:
1) What legal conditions, or obligations to make derived source code available, are placed on independent hardware vendors offering LinuxBIOS support for their hardware?
2) What's up with Intel, and why, for instance, can't an IHV use their BIOS guides to support LinuxBIOS? Is it strictly a question of access (via IBL or hardcover - "orange cover") to such guides, and IHVs with access to these guides are free to distribute their product with LinuxBIOS, subject to bugginess resulting from mediocre/nonexistent Intel support?
2b) I see Intel's 7520 chipset is actually supported, and that's rather recent - is this an anomaly, or the end of the line for Intel support?
3) Is there a list of IHVs who DO ship product on LinuxBIOS?
For an IHV developing embedded hardware that's just going to run Linux unattended anyway, it seems LinuxBIOS would be a natural choice and a tremendous cost savings; at the same time, the power profile of Intel's new architecture is well-suited to this niche. I'm trying to figure out why more commercial vendors aren't on this bandwagon.
Thanks for your input,
Drew