Can someone explain AMDs motivation in opening what is traditionally (tightly) closed firmware?
hulitu•5mo ago
> (tightly) closed firmware
Maybe for mere mortals. I'm sure the CIA/NSA had the keys.
jclulow•5mo ago
I would turn this on its head: it's not clear what the value in it being closed would be.
AMD make CPUs (and other silicon products). The more people who can take the software required to initialise those CPUs and put it to new and novel uses (some of which are going to be open source) the more CPUs they can sell. One imagines there would also be benefits in just getting your code and documentation out there in the open, with respect to having less NDAs and support legwork to have to slog through with customers who buy a lot of your silicon. If the code is open, they can probably just use it.
transpute•5mo ago
Commercially-supportable open firmware enables vertical integration for cloud computing and edge hardware appliances. The 2023 OpenSIL announcement included vendors who contribute to open-source firmware and reference hardware in OpenCompute and other projects.
AMD believes one of the ways to attain an improved security posture is to open Silicon Initialization Firmware architecture, development, and validation to the open-source community. AMD is committed to open-source software and is now expanding into the various firmware domains with the re-architecture of its x86 AGESA FW stack - designed with UEFI as the host firmware that prevented scaling, to other host firmware solutions such as coreboot, oreboot, FortiBIOS, Project µ and others.
AMD, in close collaboration with a few other organizations (9elements, AMI, AWS, 3mdeb, Datacom, Google, Meta, Oxide) from the open-source landscape, developed the first instance of AMD openSIL..
Even if a binary blob requires silicon vendor signature, open-source code can be reviewed and built by customers, to reproduce the signed binary.
pietrushnic•5mo ago
This is precisely it. Also, maybe some regulatory requirements of cloud providers and organizations like OCP. Commoditizing their complement is probably another obvious goal.
We also have to note that AMD seems to be heading for being a market leader in the server market (some signals are active in OCP Caliptra and OSF). We can see their presence at the upcoming OCP Summit, where they (together with Intel) will push forward the agenda of a generic framework for bootstrapping firmware, which is called openSFI:
https://youtu.be/1CE6olXT604
oDot•5mo ago
hulitu•5mo ago
Maybe for mere mortals. I'm sure the CIA/NSA had the keys.
jclulow•5mo ago
AMD make CPUs (and other silicon products). The more people who can take the software required to initialise those CPUs and put it to new and novel uses (some of which are going to be open source) the more CPUs they can sell. One imagines there would also be benefits in just getting your code and documentation out there in the open, with respect to having less NDAs and support legwork to have to slog through with customers who buy a lot of your silicon. If the code is open, they can probably just use it.
transpute•5mo ago
Even if a binary blob requires silicon vendor signature, open-source code can be reviewed and built by customers, to reproduce the signed binary.
pietrushnic•5mo ago
We also have to note that AMD seems to be heading for being a market leader in the server market (some signals are active in OCP Caliptra and OSF). We can see their presence at the upcoming OCP Summit, where they (together with Intel) will push forward the agenda of a generic framework for bootstrapping firmware, which is called openSFI: https://youtu.be/1CE6olXT604