[coreboot] Interesting (part of) article.

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

On 10.12.2008 16:05, Tiago Marques wrote:
> Probably, almost surely, most of the manufacturers never heard of Coreboot
> or, if they did, don't know the current state of the project and if they can
> use it or not.
>   

Yes, you do have a point.


> I think that *pushing Coreboot as a plus for the enthusiast* would be
> something to look into. Hardware enthusiasts are tweakers and, as such, like
> to tweak, what better than offer them open-source code? It may not appeal to
> all but it may for some. If manufacturers like the idea, than they'll
> probably look into it.
>   

There is one reason to avoid coreboot support: Value-added BIOS. Let me
explain. Some manufacturers sell mostly identical boards, one model with
lots of BIOS tweaking options, another model with almost not BIOS
tweaking options. I have seen such boards where you pay up to $100 more
for better tweaking options and faster boot. If anybody can do this,
they lose this source of income. OTOH, if their competitors start
shipping coreboot with lots of cool features and fast boot, they have no
chance but to follow up.


> I can try to talk to them, if someone has the time to talk to them
> afterwards.
>   

I can follow up, but only after christmas.

Our biggest problem right now is that we don't have support for high-end
chipsets for AMD boards. We do have support for 690G/SB600, but boards
with that chipset are increasingly hard to get. With VIA, it will be a
bit better soon, but their market share is rather small. The good thing
is that AMD are working on newer chipsets. Same for VIA. I expect that
we'll be better off if we talk about this in January.

And it would really be cool if we could talk to Anandtech and tell them
"burn this ready-made ROM image and tell us what you think".


Regards,
Carl-Daniel

-- 
http://www.hailfinger.org/