[coreboot] AMD's binary-only AGESA libraries

Peter Stuge peter at stuge.se
Thu Nov 6 16:07:12 CET 2014


Bruce,

I have no beef with you, but you are the closest to a communications
channel with AMD that the community is given access to, so I pass my
comments to you.

Bruce Griffith wrote:
> To get to an open-source AGESA, there were meetings and rules put in place
> within AMD with the intent that AMD would never lose proprietary license or
> ownership of the trunk AGESA or CIM-X codebases resulting from the
> contribution.

As these contributions started to flow into the community many years
ago, you may remember that I guessed that such rules would exist and
asked *literally* what those rules were. You may also remember that
there was *NO* response whatsoever.


> The principal rules are that:

Three (is it four? five?) years later it is nice to see these rules
finally confirmed. Of course, by now, all of us fools have already
been able to deduce them.

Unfortunately, by not communicating with the community, AMD has
caused a significant amount of uncertanity and confusion within the
project. Because community projects are supposed to be about
collaboration and communication, this has placed AMD in a worse
position than anyone wished for.

Although coreboot has received contributions from AMD over a long
time already, it is also painfully obvious that AMD still has some
ways to go until they can get proper returns on their investment in
coreboot.

You may understand that I, as a volunteer, can only do *so* much to
help AMD make the most of coreboot. I believe I have asked exactly
the right questions but without dialogue there can not be progress.


> AMD accepted that the process of releasing into open-source would be a
> very large and time-consuming task.

It is obviously backwards. I wonder, if someone in those meetings
suggested "let's make the open-source code our HEAD so that we only
have to scrub once and worst-case only incrementally thereafter".

Major corporations like AMD are perfectly capable of contributing to
and even running open source projects. There are many sources of
inspiration.


> AMD realized that the open-sourcing process they developed was awkward
> and required lots of developer and legal involvement.

I think you understand that the community is quite frustrated since
many attempts were made right at the start to explain that this would
be the case. Community members with any meaningful open source
experience immediately recognize how resource intensive the scrubbing
process would be for AMD.


> The six month delay required to implement the “scrub” prevents
> AMD Embedded from capitalizing

But ultimately this is AMD's problem and not coreboot's.


> Please remember that AMD’s primary goal in open-source AGESA is to
> enable new platforms to sell more chips.

Please remember that the project's primary goal is to create an open
source firmware.


> Binary PI

..is not open source firmware, is it?


> By donating AGESA as a binary instead of scrubbed open-source,
> coreboot becomes available

That's false. coreboot is an open source project. Binary PI is not
open source, so can not be part of coreboot. If it were, coreboot's
GPL would make a combination of the two difficult to use.


> This is good for AMD and good for companies that want to use AMD’s chips.

It is however not good for coreboot, the open source firmware project.


> I would propose forking open-source AGESA within the coreboot tree.
> What do you think … ?

Let's not be in such a hurry to make changes for once, let's try to
think this thing through?


Industry contributors appear unable to see the forest for all the trees.

I notice a trend within governments to require more transparency from
IT equipment suppliers. It will take a couple of years, but those
requirements will eventually bubble up also to Intel and AMD, who
will have to either open up or lose market share. Things will
progressively get worse for anyone who insists on remaining opaque,
as industry starts adopting the very same requirements as the
government.

I predict that whoever opens up first has a great advantage in
winning contracts over the next 5 years, but what do I know.


//Peter



More information about the coreboot mailing list