Re: OpenBIOS Project. (fwd)

[Stefan Reinauer]

Dear OpenBIOS readers,

here's the answer from openbios.org.

I'd say this is really fine :)

Stefan....

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 12:34:52 -0600
From: John Foster 
To: Stefan Reinauer 
Subject: Re: OpenBIOS Project.

Stefan,

A little history on myself:
I began writing bios' for clone PC's about 15 years ago as a consultant.
Since I had been involved in embedded and process control systems for years,
these were aimed at low-volume desktop and embedded applications which
usually required a lot of flexibility.  About 10 years ago, I created the XT
BiosKit book, which included source code in C for an embedded bios. Later
that year I wrote the AT BiosKit.  The books were priced at $99 and $199
respectively, which was inrtended to allow small embedded developers to
create their own bios.  A per-unit production fee was also stipulated.

I moved from San Diego back to the Midwest in 1991 and got involved in
building an ISP business and that has taken most of my time since.  We soon
found that our Windows NT platforms (which worked well as bios development
platforms) did not solve the typical ISP problems and we tried RedHat Linux
a few years ago.  Obviously this awakened us to two things! - Linux is the
wave of the future and that the Open Source idea that we had with our
original BiosKits was really relevant.

I had also written some real-time operating systems for micro and mini
computers back about 30 years ago and always had intended to pursue this
area just because of the enjoyment of doing it.

There are two basic bios needs - support for 16-bit versions to support the
traditional functionality of a bios, and a clean approach to 32-bit versions
to support Linux (and similar operating systems).

My previous 16-bit version is based on using Microsoft 1.52 compiler and
MASM - I really want to find suitable public domain tools to update this -
make it a total package by being able to include the toolset (like we have
in the 32 bit world).

A new 32 bit version can use GCC and NASM so with tool support readily
available, the next fascinating question is architecture - which your group
is addressing.

So much to do, so little time.........

With the Open Source movement gaining speed, I see that companies like
RedHat and SendMail are able to produce income by providing convenience,
support, packaging, etc., by building on an open source structure.  In order
to return to my spending full time creating software, I am attempting to
figure out how to combine Openness with Income.  A thorny question!! I hope
a solution can be found.

Additionally, the Open approach seems to provide an exciting opportunity to
create a new reat-time system aimed at embedded applications. I have a lot
of ideas based on doing and thinking about this for the last 30 years.

Regarding the OpenBios.org domain, I registered this really to protect it, I
intend for this to preserve the intent of opennesss and want it to be
available not only for myself, but for anyone interested in this idea.  So I
invite you and your group to use this domain. It presently is hosted on an
NT server, but forgive us, we are still learning Linux, Apache and all the
rest! - our intention is to move this as well as all our other websites to
Apache.  If there is interest in someone in the group becoming a webmaster
and site maintainer - I  heartily invite hearing from you.

It is good to hear from you and I invite you to convey this info to the
others in the group...

Best Regards to all,

John O. Foster - [e-mail]

-----Original Message-----
From: Stefan Reinauer 
To: [e-mail] 
Date: Saturday, November 21, 1998 10:53 AM
Subject: OpenBIOS Project.
> Dear Postmaster!
>
> I didn't find any contact adress on the webpages neither of openbios.com
> nor of openbios.org, so I decided to mail you.
>
> We, too, have an upcoming project since about one year, which we called
> OpenBIOS and it's going to be a completely 32bit enhanced, GNU licenced
> firmware for intel and other hardware platforms.
>
> You may want to check out
> http://www.freiburg.linux.de/OpenBIOS/
>
> Maybe it could be interesting to stay in contact with each other. What are
> your approaches? You don't have a lot of information on your site.
>
> Best regards,
>    Stefan.