Intro
This document aims to compare the openness of Dasharo Firmware and Insyde BIOS.
There is an ongoing discussion about the methodology of the openness metric.
BIOS versions used in the analysis
Insyde BIOS
In the case of the Insyde bios, the entire image should be considered proprietary. There are several parts of the image that have a well-known structure or make use of a public standard. However, to decode these structures, one needs to employ reverse-engineering tools and techniques to know what structures are present.
Dasharo BIOS
CBFS
| image | size (bytes) | Is it open-source? |
|---|---|---|
| cbfs master header | 20h | Yes |
| fallback/romstage | 14770h | Yes |
| cpu_microcode_blob.bin | 31C00h | No |
| intel_fit | 50h | Yes |
| fallback/ramstage | 1E626h | Yes |
| config | 579h | Yes |
| revision | 351h | Yes |
| build_info | 5Dh | Yes |
| fallback/dsdt.aml | 6233h | Yes |
| vbt.bin | 51Ch | Yes |
| (empty) | 1E4h | N/A |
| fspm.bin | 9F000h | No |
| cmos_layout.bin | 22Ch | Yes |
| (empty) | D24h | N/A |
| fsps.bin | 43676h | No |
| fallback/postcar | 8F24h | Yes |
| fallback/payload | 1771C5h | Yes |
| fallback/verstage | 12C80h | Yes |
| (empty) | 10E5E4h | N/A |
| bootblock | 74C0h | Yes |
| Summary | 3F7A33h | In 62.9% |
Open and closed source images are in the table below.
| type | summarised size | Percent |
|---|---|---|
| open-source | 1D42D1h | 62.9% |
| closed-source | 114276h | 37.1% |
| empty (not included) | 10F4ECh |
Whole flash image
| region | size | open-source percent (bytes) |
|---|---|---|
| descriptor | 1000h | 0% |
| ME | 4FF000h | 0% |
| BIOS | B00000h | 62.9% |
| Summary | 1000000h | 43.2% |
Summary
| image | open-source percent (bytes) |
|---|---|
| Insyde | 0% |
| Dasharo | 43.2% |