----- Forwarded message from David Hendricks ----- Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2013 12:07:00 -0700 From: David Hendricks To: Patrick Georgi Cc: Coreboot Subject: Re: [coreboot] [liberationtech] Fwd: Firefox OS with built in support for OpenPGP encryption

Both of these boxes let you reflash your system firmware with your

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custom build of BSD-licensed TianoCore UEFI.

BSD-licensed TianoCore + heaps of binary modules that are currently only available under NDA. They'd also require some additional code (probably binary only?) to make Tiano resembling something like a complete and secure implementation.

And as far as FOSS firmware development goes, Gizmo Board ( http://www.gizmosphere.org/why-gizmo/gizmoboard/) is far superior and actually ships with fully functioning open source firmware derived from coreboot. No blobs, no restrictive licensing.

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There is a large OEM/ODM/IBV/IHV/ISV ecosystem that currently runs the hardware, and it is UEFI-centric. IMO, focusing only on fringe Lemote/Coreboot technology is not a good bet.

coreboot is your only bet on x86 if you aim for open source firmware. It can be combined with TianoCore to provide the UEFI APIs to the user (read: Operating System), but TianoCore alone won't do since it lacks hardware initialization drivers (that coreboot provides).

Indeed. TianoCore is not a full firmware implementation -- It usually sits atop a layer cake of non-free / binary components that do the actual work of initializing the hardware. As Patrick points out, Coreboot running with TianoCore on top as a payload can accomplish what you seem to be asking for. There has been substantial work done here already, so if you *really* need UEFI services you can work on polishing it up: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTI4ODU -- David Hendricks (dhendrix) Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc. -- coreboot mailing list: coreboot@coreboot.org http://www.coreboot.org/mailman/listinfo/coreboot ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://ativel.com http://postbiota.org AC894EC5: 38A5 5F46 A4FF 59B8 336B 47EE F46E 3489 AC89 4EC5