[coreboot] New board with unsupported cpu, chipset, and superIO

[Todd Weaver]

On Aug 28, 2014, at 2:29 PM, Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.devel.2006 at gmx.net> wrote:
> Am 28.08.2014 23:16 schrieb Todd Weaver:
>> On Aug 28, 2014, at 11:26 AM, Todd Weaver <todd at m2n.com> wrote:
>>> On Aug 28, 2014, at 10:59 AM, ron minnich <rminnich at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> The truth here is that we NEED to have a blob-free version (libreboot), so I have a lot of work ahead of me :)
>>>> If you NEED blob-free, you may need to go ARM.
>>> We cannot easily (actually it would be quite impossible) to move from the Intel hardware at this point.
>> Per the private messages, I am asking upstream if we can switch to AMD, is AMD in a state where we can attain (meaning it is possible (comparing that to Intel)) a binary free BIOS?
> 
> You can, but with chipsets/CPUs released in the last few months you may
> be out of luck. Right now, it appears AMD does not see compelling enough
> business reasons to publish the source code for the newest hardware
> generations, but you may be able to get the source code for the blobs
> under NDA.

Thanks, that helps set the stage with AMD discussions.

> That said, there are quite a few pieces of recent (and still in
> production) AMD hardware which do have full coreboot support. Exceptions
> from the blob-free guarantee are graphics firmware and USB3 firmware,
> which are both not executed on the main CPU.

Comparing the blob-free versions from Intel (which are apparently signed, so according to http://www.coreboot.org/Binary_situation are at a 9000+ panic level), would it be possible to have blob-free (probably through RE) that would work (meaning does not require signed binaries) on an AMD board?

> Depending on how big your order is (not just "enthusiasts all over the
> world will surely buy it", but real money spent by your
> company/organization), you might have some real leverage, even for
> getting code published.

We will do what we can here. The issue is even with immense leverage, having the source released (from AMI, or AMD, (or Intel for that matter)) would undermine tremendous profit that these companies make by keeping this proprietary. So I’m leaning toward the direction that we’d have to RE the missing pieces (but could be wrong, thus the questions).

Todd.