[coreboot] [Fwd: Re: Contact Intel]

[Joe]

On Thu, 01 May 2008 06:11:14 -0400, Richard M Stallman <rms at gnu.org> wrote:
> You have no hope of influencing a large company through channels like
> this one.  You are talking with a low-level person who has no
> authority to change anything, and whose job is only to try to convince
> you to accept what Intel is doing.
> 
> What you got is therefore only the statement Intel uses to justify
> not cooperating with us.
> 
> It could be that the Coreboot developers can find statements which are
> misleading or false, and publish an article which would put pressure
> on Intel.
> 
> Some of the points are simply distractions or illogical.  For
> instance:
> 
>     BIOS is a part of the reliability and performance promise of the
>     hardware.
> 
> Is that true?  If so, so what?  That is no reason not to let us run
> our own BIOS.
> 
> 	       Chipset specifications at the level being discussed are
>     commonly considered proprietary by all silicon vendors, not just
>     Intel.
> 
> In other words, "Everyone spits on your freedom".  Even if it were
> true, so what?
> 
> However, it is false: some computer models do work with free BIOS.
> Intel compares badly with them.  This is one of the statements that
> maybe could be criticized in a published response.
> 
>     The open source firmware work that Intel *is* sponsoring could
>     lead to a solution where proprietary low-level chipset
>     initialization code from silicon vendors is made compatible with
>     open source higher-level platform initialization and pre-boot
>     management.
> 
> As they say, this is not a complete free BIOS, just part of one.
> 
> If the "proprietary low-level chipset initialization code" is in ROM
> on the chips that it initializes, then it is tolerable.  (It might as
> well be circuits on that chip.)  Otherwise, it is insufficient unless
> made complete.
> 
> 
I couldn't agree with you more Richard, but on the other hand it is nice to
think someday Intel will wake up and realize the world is changing around
them :-)

-- 
Thanks,
Joseph Smith
Set-Top-Linux
www.settoplinux.org