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Firmware. Firmware is commonly stored in an EEPROM, which makes use of an I/O protocol such as SPI. In computing, firmware is software that provides low-level control of computing device hardware. For a relatively simple device, firmware may perform all control, monitoring and data manipulation functionality. For a more complex device, firmware ...
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI, / ˈ juː ɪ f aɪ / or as an acronym) [b] is a specification that defines the architecture of the platform firmware used for booting the computer hardware and its interface for interaction with the operating system.
Libreboot (briefly known as GNU Libreboot[ 3][ 4]) is a free software project based on coreboot, aimed at replacing some of the proprietary BIOS firmware contained in some computers, though does require certain vendor code on some platforms as that code may not have been replaced with libre software. Libreboot is a lightweight system designed ...
OpenBIOS. OpenBIOS is a project aiming to provide free and open source implementations of Open Firmware. It is also the name of such an implementation. Most of the implementations provided by OpenBIOS rely on additional lower-level firmware for hardware initialization, such as coreboot or Das U-Boot .
Computer manufacturers that distribute OEM versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft application software can use the SLIC to authenticate licensing to the OEM Windows Installation disk and system recovery disc containing Windows software.
Open Firmware is a standard defining the interfaces of a computer firmware system, formerly endorsed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It originated at Sun Microsystems where it was known as OpenBoot , and has been used by multiple vendors including Sun , Apple , IBM and ARM .
"Free and open-source software" (FOSS) is an umbrella term for software that is simultaneously considered both free software and open-source software. [5] The precise definition of the terms "free software" and "open-source software" applies them to any software distributed under terms that allow users to use, modify, and redistribute said software in any manner they see fit, without requiring ...
proprietary software, such as Microsoft Office, Windows, Adobe Photoshop, Facebook or FaceTime. Users cannot study, change, and share their source code. freeware or gratis [ 14] software, which is a category of proprietary software that does not require payment for basic use.