Hi, Ron,
I am hesitant to respond because I am afraid that this is a philosophical discussion that will stir a lot of strong opinions and debates. :-)
If open source community is meant for collaboration and innovation, do you think there can be silicon specific code that only a few people can understand, therefore whether it is open or not really does not matter? Besides, if the code is meant to be part of SOC someday, does it matter whether or not it is completely open? For example, ARM has a Boot ROM inside their SOC, should the code inside the Boot ROM be open? or does it matter?
I think it is a balancing act that every silicon vendor needs to decide on. Some are more careful than the others.
I know some hard-core open source advocates would like to see every software open including microcode, but from practicality perspective, if the code cannot be modified by the community without causing adverse effects, then it is not something that needs to be "collaborated" on; thus open or not really does not matter. I think you and some Google people have provided this view in this forum sometimes in the past, Ron.
I know this view point is not going to be popular, but Intel is trying hard to open as much code as possible (tianocore.org, Linux drivers, and Quark firmware are a few examples; I am sure more will come in the future).
This conversation is meant for dialog, and it is my own opinions. Just a disclaimer: this is not Intel's official position, and I don't speak for Intel. :-)
After that being said, any comments about Intel's FSP are still welcome. We believe encapsulating basic silicon code is a good idea regardless if it is completely open.
Thanks, Jiming
On Mon, May 5, 2014 at 8:51 AM, ron minnich rminnich@gmail.com wrote:
Jiming, why doesn't intel just put that more open stuff up on github and be done with it?
ron
-
Jiming Sun