I have significantly reworked the article to address most of the comments on this page. I've added several references to the article. The most significant one is to an Intel presentation describing why EFI is better than the traditional PC BIOS, and how it is designed as a replacement for it. I've worded the article to reflect how EFI was described in the presentation, and I've attributed this thinking to Intel.

I think it's pretty neutral. I certainly don't have a TC (or licensing or patent or...) axe to grind. If others agree, then maybe we can remove the NPOV tag...

I've also left the information regarding FAT issues on the talk page below. These are certainly an issue for providers of EFI systems and Open Suorce operating systems, but I don't think that an article describing EFI needs to get bogged down in a patent discussion: it's certainly not an issue particularly specific to EFI as compared to any other computer technology. You wouldn't include a huge patent debate in a digital camera article, even though they use FAT, too...

Tmassey 20:06, 12 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

According to this presentation from WinHec 2004 (page 15), the EFI System Partition (ESP) is FAT-32: EFI And Windows "Longhorn"

And Microsoft just won the case about the FAT patents: Microsoft's file system patent upheld

So to use FAT you need to license the IP from Microsoft: Microsoft FAT license (Broken link?)

But you can do that for free if you are implementing EFI, here:

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/fatgen.mspx

The standard dosn't say anything about other partitions than the ESP, so that doesn't rule out MacOS.

"In 2006, Apple shipped their first Intel-based Macintosh computers with EFI, replacing Open Firmware on their iMac and MacBook Pro models."

This is unclear as to whether it implies that Apple shipped their first computer with EFI or not. (I'm not sure of this myself, but I'm pretty sure this is the case.) Rewording it might be better: "In 2006, Apple shipped their first Macintosh computers with EFI, replacing Open Firmware on their new Intel-based iMac and MacBook Pro models." That seems a bit clearer to me. Paul^C/_T 19:51, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree: this was not clear. The new IntelMac's are EFI based. However, there have never been OpenFirmware Intel Mac's: the developer computers were BIOS-based, not OF. I've changed the text to read: "In 2006, Apple Computer shipped their first Intel-based Macintosh computers with EFI instead of OpenFirmware, which had been used on their previous PowerPC-based systems.[3]" Thoughts?

Tmassey 20:42, 13 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Under the heading "Platforms that use EFI or the Framework" it is stated "Using Boot Camp, which includes a compatibility support module, these systems are also able to boot Windows XP."

This is flat out wrong. Boot Camp is an application which 1. is a partition wizard and 2. burns a drivers CD. Windows can install, boot, and run on any Intel based Mac whether Boot Camp is used or not.

It makes things (a lot) easier for end users but is no way a technical requirement what-so-ever. Everything Boot Camp does is either already provided with OS X or can be replaced with a simple download.

Some of the EARLY Intel based Macs had some technical glitches booting Windows due to Apples implementation of EFI did NOT emulate BIOS. Apple released a "Firmware update" that fixed this at the same time they released Boot Camp (Beta) for public download. This has caused tons of confusion to non-technical Mac users.

"Boot Camp" is one the single most misused terms in the Mac Universe on message boards everywhere, and the above mentioned statement certainly does not help.

I clarified the wording. Obviously, a CSM is needed to boot Windows. The shrink-wrapped iMac with older firmware does not include a CSM, and is therefore not able to boot Windows on its own. Because the E in EFI stands for Extensible, the CSM can be loaded from an external device, such as a filesystem on a disk. --Gribeco 15:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This article wouldn't need its cleanup tag anymore if there were some headers. --Michiel Sikma 20:16, 17 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Ideally, the EFI development model will move the concept of hardware drivers from the operating system back into the lowest level of the PC structure: the hardware itself."

Does anyone else have a problem with this sentence? I edited the article to include sections and made some minor grammatical changes. I wanted to change this sentence, but I let it stand.

The problem that I see is that it makes it sound like the author is proposing that OS-level drivers are bad and EFI-level drivers are good. That debate is probably beyond the scope of this article. If the sentence stays, it should probably be worded to sound less like an opinion.

Agree with above. Also I found it a little confusing, since the article makes clear that EFI seems to make it easier to update the 'bios' level then before.. And then comments about it being in the hardware. Some clarification would be great. 70.113.217.91

I noticed this page was being cleaned up at the same time I was attempting to do the same thing. I went with my version as I feel it is cleaner, more organized, and represents more signficant content changes than the other version. I wish I could have it done sooner, so as to save the other person some work. If there are any significant and important changes in the other version that should be incorporated, please do so (I'm not that great at reading the diff pages—they're not very helpful sometimes)—Kbolino 22:12, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

EFI is actually quite a few things. First of all is it not completely a bios replacement. It provides no means for performing the POST or setup. However it does act like a replacement bios in the sense of providing a low level continiously available system for interfacing with the hardware.

It is interesting that Intel's sample implementation has one form in which it uses to bios to implement its features. There is a second form that can be loaded by the bios'es initial program loader, that once loaded ignores the bios completely. (And basically forces the bios out of memory to provide its own services.)

The normal implementation of EFI has a bios-like chip that runs the POST and then does loads EFI, usually from a flash or NVRAM chip, but it could be from the harddrive also.

The advantage of a flash chip is that EFI applications providing recovery or diagonstic utilities could be placed on the chip, and used even when the hard drive is not working.

Back to what EFI is: Besides the bios replacement that uses drivers loaded in memory, allowing more flexibility tha the IBM bios, EFI is also a pre-boot Micro-OS. It runs EFI applications, which include boot loaders, diagnostic utilities or the EFI shell.

Really it is quite interesting. It would be nice if this page better reflected what EFI really is. 17:40, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't see the article. I got the page for a non-existent article. I hope this is a temporary problem. --MarSch 09:37, 17 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the point here, EFI has nothing to do with the statment:

(EFI) is a system developed by Intel to replace the BIOS..

EFI is only a specification aimed to put a new standard in the Interface of the system Firmware; i.e: how a Specific software like an Operating System should deal with system Firmware functions, It has nothing to do with 'BIOS replacement'

This sounds:

-memodude 07:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC) oops...just made an idiot out of myself - did a little more research and the Intel brand 945 series mobos really do have EFI support. -memodude 07:28, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

This section contains this sentence: The shell can be viewed as a functional replacement for MS-DOS.

I comment on it because to me, first it's wrong, then it supposes that MS-DOS was present on all BIOS based machines. It's wrong because EFI can't be a replacement for an OS, minimal, simplistic as can be DOS, EFI does not have the same function, for example, in MS-DOS, as in other OS you can launch a program that targets it, etc... So no, EFI Shell is not a functional replacement for MS-DOS Second, I said it assumes that prior to EFI all BIOS machines must have had MS-DOS installed since it is a replacement, and everyone having even little knowledge of computing knows that it's wrong, Linux does not boot with does, nor does Windows NT (since the first one, NT 3.xx), nor FreeBSD, so let's not keep on making people think that MS-DOS, Windows, etc, etc has always been around.

I suggest that this sentence is removed, there's no comparison possible with MS-DOS or any other systems.

83.113.193.227 09:29, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I clarified the paragraph a bit. Just like you don't need DOS today to boot Windows or Linux, you do not need the EFI shell either. The shell allows you to do the kind of things DOS does today; the most interesting ones are device-level tests (particularly for manufacturing environments) and device-level init (i.e. RAID set creation or modification). --Gribeco 19:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What is the goal of the merge? It seems like a bad idea to me, but I have little background as I see no item supporting it. Jabencarsey 20:33, 16 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not keen on a merge either, since the UEFI Forum owns other specifications besides EFI (including the Platform Initialization Specification), and PI definitely warrants another article (the lack of publicly available sources is an impediment at this point). --Gribeco 21:41, 20 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The section about intellectual property should either be removed or cleaned-up, as it is totally not NPOV, and makes false claims:

According to Ron Minnich, the lead developer for LinuxBIOS

Is the 'lead developer for LinuxBIOS' an authority on this case? I would say he would be pretty biased. Why would I (or anyone seeking EFI information) want to know his opinion?

one of the stated goals of EFI is to “protect hardware vendors’ intellectual property”.

Good, so we have hearsay here. Nowhere on the UEFI website can this 'stated goal' be found.

This raises security concerns

For whom? Who is doing the raising? Weasel word alert!

and notably makes creating a free software implementation impossible.

Why? Can a free software implementor not sign the "the UEFI Adopters' Agreement"? Since the specs are free to read, why would an implementation not be distributable by BSD license?

EFI could be used to create a “DRM BIOS”

Sure, but so could any BIOS implementation. Modern non-EFI BIOSes contain SMM code that can do stuf without the OS knowing, including simulating or blocking devices. Has nothing to with EFI whatsoever.

thus letting vendors build computers which limit what the user can do.

Damn, I really want to play the latest 3D games on my old P1 266MHz with a Tseng ET4000. What do you say? Not possible? Has anyone limited what I can do? Really, even without the sarcasm, that's a sorry sentence...

EFI is not open source.

EFI is a specification, not source code. EFI is not a car either. Or a gorilla. Do we really need to state the obvious here?

Its specification is not publicly viewable

This is downright false, see http://www.uefi.org/specs/

and EFI site suggests that it is a supporter of the Trust Computing Group.

Which is a well-known El-Qaeda affiliate? And where does it 'suggest' (weasel word alert!) Come on people, NPOV please!

Ok, I'll stop ranting. If anyone wants to clean up the section, please do so. If noone does, I'll do it, but then don't start wining it's non to your liking. Jalwikip (talk) 10:11, 10 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]