[coreboot] Interested vendors [was: [Fwd: Re: Contact Intel]]

[Peter Stuge]

On Wed, Apr 30, 2008 at 06:59:02PM +0200, arc wrote:
> Is there a vendor that showed some interest in the free bios project?

Indeed there are.

AMD is actively supporting coreboot with documentation and code.
They presented some nice slides at the coreboot meeting in Denver
last month: http://www.coreboot.org/images/6/60/Coreboot_summit_08.pdf

VIA releases documentation under NDA, allowing GPL code to be written
from it. Some developers have signed. VIA are pretty slow though, it
regularly takes several weeks for them to send the requested
documentation even when agreements are in place.

SiS have contributed code to coreboot.

PC Engines have assisted with technical information needed to port
coreboot to their boards.

Kontron just recently contributed code to make flashrom work with
some of their products.

US-based Silicon Mechanics offers a particular Opteron rack server
preinstalled with coreboot.

Stefan Reinauer's company coresystems GmbH and my company
Konsult Stuge both offer professional coreboot services.

My company also offers the Gigabyte GA-M57SLI-S4 mainboard modified
with a second, 2Mbyte large, flash chip and a BIOS switch,
preinstalled with coreboot for sale to businesses worldwide and end
users in certain european countries. (Restrictions due to EU
environmental legislation.)


There are several other vendors who have either helped further the
project or have offers on products and services related to it:

http://www.coreboot.org/Sponsors
http://www.coreboot.org/Products


> Is there something I could do to push vendors to help?

I think that only a solid business case fitting the vendor's existing
model of operation is convincing enough.


//Peter