How hard is it to make firmware, CPU's and BiOS etc.

Posted by Clownshoesms on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @04:39AM
from the self-post dept.

I am personally of the opinion we cannot trust corporations to look after our best interests as a species. They will look after a handful of people to excess, but abuse the rest of the population for profit.

That said, is there any path forward for open source/free:

* CPUs * Motherboard BIOS/CMOS * Firmware in proprietary devices

Thoughts? Am I the only one getting a bit peeved with wealthy corps trampling on the tragedy of the commons and us as a species?

( 4 comments | 2 points | on HN )

Re:How hard is it to make firmware, CPU's and BiOS etc. by CyberFonic on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @06:29AM (#14245297)

You are not alone. The CoreBoot (https://www.coreboot.org/) project is maintained by programmers who would agree with you.

The main problem with opensource BIOS is the need to understand several proprietary interfaces.

As for the CPU, have a look at the RISC-V project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISC-V). I have seen links to implementations but I can't find them at the moment.

You might want to consider systems built using ARM processors instead of Intel. There are several proprietary backdoors in Intel CPUs.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How hard is it to make firmware, CPU's and BiOS etc. by ordu on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @05:16AM (#14245045)

> Am I the only one getting a bit peeved with wealthy corps trampling on the tragedy of the commons and us as a species?

You can find more of your kind. Take a loot at libreboot, for example.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How hard is it to make firmware, CPU's and BiOS etc. by brudgers on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @11:23AM (#14247110)

It is very hard and very expensive to put a billion transistors on a chip.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How hard is it to make firmware, CPU's and BiOS etc. by p3trov94 on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @05:31AM (#14245113)

I agree with you completely x

[ Parent | on HN ]