Future Intel Systems to Be Even Less Friendly for Open-Source Firmware

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-USF-FSP-3.0-Less-OSF

by pabs3 • 4 years ago

38 24 4 years ago

phoronix.com

0dayz• 4 years ago

To be honest, it's not like Intel historically has had osf in mind more or less ever when designing their firmware.

And in a way I suppose it makes some sense, very few (laymen) care about open firmware.

But this is another bleak piece of reality being nailed down the into the open source coffin.

banach• 4 years ago

Good thing there are alternatives.

squarefoot• 4 years ago

Reading this after the last Intel acquisition of Linutronix makes one wonder if Intel's plan is to force Linux systems to run their own set of tight closed kernel/patches, which of course would be insane in any security sensitive environment.

technerder• 4 years ago

Really hoping for RISC-V to take off and become a viable and mainstream alternative for consumer desktop machines so we can have a modern, fully open, and customizable computer.

octoberfranklin6• 4 years ago

I would love to believe in this, but in practice RISC-V has only gained traction in 32-bit microcontrollers, from companies that simply don't want to pay for an ARM license.

If there is a riscv64 server/workstation out there that I can buy, today, I would love to order one.

pabs36• 4 years ago

SiFive are the closest to that.

throwawaylinux• 4 years ago

RISC-V doesn't mandate an implementation's hardware and firmware stack be fully open, does it?

mhh__• 4 years ago

Not at all

Aurelius3• 4 years ago

Isin't risc mainly for embedded systems and low power usage?

alpaca128• 4 years ago

ARM is a RISC architecture and enough to power Apple's Macbooks. Low power can also indicate high efficiency.

bitwize• 4 years ago

Yeah, if you're looking for an open-source workstation solution, my advice is simple: Give up. Buy a Mac.

To the extent that open source is tolerated at all by OEMs, it will be behind someone's sandbox, whether that be some sort of virtual machine or proprietary baseband firmware that runs as super, super root. Eventually, proprietary firmware will verify and attest that the software you run, from power on to end user application code, is authorized and approved, or the machine will refuse to run it. The CPU will shut off after 30s if it cannot find a vendor-signed, approved boot firmware. All for "security reasons", of course; whose security is not specified.

Today if you want to run entirely open source including firmware, your best shot is a prohibitively expensive workstation with a POWER CPU. That's what all of "general purpose computing" will look like soon; only possible with extremely expensive, boutique equipment. Eventually the profit margins on boutique hardware will crumble and no one without a large corporate or government account will be able to get their hands on hardware uncontrolled by someone's proprietary firmware or OS. That's just the economics of the situation.

So yeah, just buy a Mac. Apple may be a multitrillion dollar company, but a) they own very nearly EVERY piece of IP inside that Mac, and when they say "jump", the supply chain asks "how high", meaning that unlike other OEMs, Apple is beholden to NO ONE; b) they are the only OEM that comes remotely close to giving a shit about you, the end user. It's hard to overstate what a miraculous company Apple truly is.

badrabbit• 4 years ago

Good points. But it also means when apple tells me to "bend over", I would have to say "how low? Please lubricate?".

My hope is for frame.work, pine64 and others to get to a point where risc-v or ppc models would be offered.

pjmlp• 4 years ago

I gave up 20 years ago, for me Linux was only a means to an end, running UNIX on the cheap at home.

I have more hours delivering stuff into production using Solaris, HP-UX and Aix, than GNU/Linux.

In fact, had Microsoft been serious with their POSIX subsystem for Windows NT, I most likely wouldn't have bothered with Linux during the university, which for a big part of our lectures was still using DG/UX.

The success of macOS and Microsoft's WSL endeavors prove that most people only care to have some kind of POSIX support, regardless of the actual kernel.

pabs36• 4 years ago

The only vendor that seems to take open firmware seriously seems to be Raptor, they are even blocking switching from open firmware POWER9 systems to POWER10 CPUs because of non-open RAM training code.

https://raptorcs.com/

octoberfranklin6• 4 years ago

The Power10 issue isn't just memory training. There's a programmable processor in the memory interface that runs a signed blob.

That's a much more serious problem -- potentially even worse than the Intel ME since the ME can't possibly intercept every single memory access without the user noticing the slowdown.

pabs36• 4 years ago

Is POWER10 usable *at all* without that blob?

Does the programmable processor itself enforce that signature?

Is there a way to modify the keyring for that verification?

jgerrish• 4 years ago

Don't worry peeps, RISC-V softcore porn killed the Wintel marriage.

Hahaha, my sides are splitting! Hahaha!

And the future is open-source firmware.

The catch (of the day)? Strong trademark protection and certification to be included in the global supply chain.

Print that out and trace it on your ass Mr. Stallman.

Hahaha. I'm sad.

Future Intel Systems to Be Even Less Friendly for Open-Source Firmware

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