In the announcement of the new Chromebook and Chromebox, I found this interesting tidbit: "And support for hardware-accelerated graphics, a built-from-scratch multi-touch trackpad and an open-source firmware stack provide a much faster and more responsive computing experience." It's the open source firmware stack that interests me. Does anybody know how extensive this is?
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2011-08-26
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I'm guessing Coreboot, but is that really a "stack"?
coreboot + u-boot
coreboot only provides hardware init, so it requires something else (u-boot in this case; seabios, grub2, FILO, ... in others) to proceed.
It's not many layers, but I guess it could be called a stack.
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2005-07-06
Open^H^H^H^HFree BIOS = more choices for Richard Stallman, if/when his Lemote ( http://richard.stallman.usesthis.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemote ) netbook dies.
Of course, I fully expect him to wipe out Chrome OS (however "nice" it seems to be becoming) in disgust 
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Sandybridge (which the new systems are based on) doesn't execute even a single x86 instruction without an intel-signed binary only component in flash.
As I understand the FSF's definition, that would be a "blob". RMS will have to stick to Lemotes for a while longer.
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Oh well. At least further developments ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemote#Loongson_3A_laptop ) start to look quite interesting - and they should continue, considering China's efforts to achieve technology independence.
I don't think RMS cares much about lack of x86 compatibility (though, from the Wiki article about Loongson, it seems like the architecture has some provisions for speedy x86 emulation)
I guess it only fits that People's Republic of China might be the place that will bring Stallman 's dreams to reality... 
(with the inevitable "spilling over" of their domestic technologies - first to Asia, then at least Africa and Latin America; most of the world, really)
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