Stallman Calls For Action on Free BIOS 487
Dolda2000 writes "Seeking to achieve 100% software freedom, RMS is now calling for action for a free BIOS. From the article: "The most uncooperative company is Intel, which has started a sham 'open source' BIOS project. The software consists of all the unimportant parts of of a BIOS, minus the hard parts. It won't run, and doesn't bring us any closer to a BIOS that does. It is just a distraction. By contrast, AMD cooperates pretty well." For reference, there are currently two projects for a free BIOS that I know of: LinuxBIOS and OpenBIOS."
It makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Liability problems? (Score:4, Insightful)
Admittedly, not many people actually screw up their motherboards today because of company-supplied BIOS updates, but in my opinion the most likely reason for that is that most people don't update their motherboard's BIOS.
I think this is a necessary problem to solve for a host of reasons (the most pressing in my mind being removing "Trusted Computing Initiatives" or DRM) but I can't imagine who might be willing to distribute such a thing because of the liability concerns.
How would "cooperating"..... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is not flame bait. I am just trying to understand why corporations like Intel would cooperate.
All I can say is stop whining and move on.
It's my flashBIOS chip... (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How would "cooperating"..... (Score:4, Insightful)
In short, if done correctly it would cost them nothing and give them a bit more credibility.
Paranoia? (Score:4, Insightful)
It might just be me being naïve, but would Intel really go to such lengths to create a "distraction"? I find it a bit paranoid to think they'd start a project with the sole intention of just slowing down the progress for an open sourced BIOS.
Re:It's my flashBIOS chip... (Score:5, Insightful)
This raises the question - Am I really Free? When a Free Software BIOS exists, you can make a safe bet that I'll be using it.
(P.S. I'd suggest against using the term Open Source to describe software which is made to protect the rights of the users. There is a huge difference between Free Software and Open Source - Namely OS completely avoids any real mention of software Freedom. You won't find any mention of the four freedoms [gnu.org] on OSI's site [opensource.org]. Indeed, the only real mention of software freedom is where they call it ideological tub-thumping [opensource.org]. This is definitely a Free Software issue, not an Open Source issue.)
Re:How would "cooperating"..... (Score:3, Insightful)
"minus all the Hurd parts" (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on. Intel only started their project in the past couple years. If you can't finish Hurd on your own, don't gripe about other projects which aren't moving fast enough for you. Or, hey, maybe you could look in the other kernels... you know, the Open Source kernels which aren't owned by the FSF. They seem to be able to do the job. They've been running all this time, while Hurd hasn't.
Sure, you're going to say Hurd runs. Well, where's the GNU/GNU Distro?
Re:Motherboard support (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem with a motherboard BIOS is that it's tailored to the motherboard.
Not all that much of a different problem from a device driver that's tailored to the device.
Treacherous computing (Score:5, Insightful)
This makes it even more critical that we get free software BIOSes, and soon!
Re:Liability problems? (Score:5, Insightful)
Take the Linksys WRT54G, it's Linux-based. Linksys gains from using the well tested Linux core, and the customers gain by having the option to hack it at will. Check out http://openwrt.org/ [openwrt.org] for an example of the positive results.
Think of the BIOS as the ignition to your car. You can dismantle it if you wish, why should the PC's BIOS be any different?
Re:It's my flashBIOS chip... (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying "The license to your BIOS doesn't matter as long as you can run stuff on it" is like saying "The fact that my car's engine is sealed in a lead black box doesn't matter as long as I can still drive." Yeah, on the surface it's true but when you think of the subject with any actual depth it just doesn't make sense.
Re:How would "cooperating"..... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
While a wholly open-source machine would be great, it won't be a reality until we have technology that breaks the electronics mass production bottleneck (perhaps nanoassemblers). In the mean time you just have to decide which companies you're prepared to trust.
Re:Show us the code (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Bios support is an ongoing issue. Newer CPUs, RAM modules, hard drives, video cards are always coming out, as are bugs. With a closed source bios, support is cut after a certain length of time, and it is tough luck if any bios limitations exist after then. Oftentimes they don't address all the issues even while they're still making updates.
How many people are stuck with a motherboard they can't put a hard drive into, or can't do this or that, or are being bitten by a bug because of the bios. This happens all the time.
Also, bios setup screens are consistantly poorly designed, excessively limited, and written in "somebody set us up the bios" Engrish.
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, thank you for any and all Free Software you have written, under any Free Software license, copyleft or not.
Second, please don't conflate "commercial" and "proprietary"; many people make a living selling development of Free Software and support for Free Software, and confusing those two terms makes it more difficult for those people, just as you have encountered difficulty from managers that fear Free Software due to copyleft. Please have some sympathy for those people, and ensure that your statements do not undermine their use of GPLed software to make a living.
Finally, note that if you write a piece of software, you hold the copyright on that software; you may release it under the GPL, and you may also use it in proprietary products. You are in no way restricted by the license on a piece of software wholly written by you. The GPL simply prevents others from taking your software and making it proprietary, and prevents you from taking other people's GPLed software proprietary.
Re:It makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the 'just for the sake of it' part:
Imagine buying a new harddisk and finding that your bios doesn't support such large drives..
What are you going to do? Beg the vendor of your closed source bios to make an update for a board they consider obsolete?
If the bios was open you could add support yourself. (Or alternativly pay one of those starving developers to make the changes for you)
Jeroen
A bias towards freedom, liberty and self-control (Score:0, Insightful)
I agree, its a bias!
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
We as humanity have a finite amount of resources, which means that if I'm going to expend resources by writing software I need to get something in return, in order to provide for my family
The problem is that we are using the end product as if it were a limited resource. It is not, we use special laws like copyright to limit it by force.
The real limited resource here are programmers.
With the right business model you can get paid for programming regardless which license the end result is released under.
BSD style licenses allow me to get recognition (not much I haven't written a lot of Open Source) and allow me to re-use that software in my commercial projects, which benefits me and Open Source as it allows me to get buy-in from management.
GPL licenses do not. Essentialy I write GPL software and I cannot use it in any commercial projects.
BSD doesn't guarantee buy-in... management could simply take your code and release it under a non-free license. They might say 'thank you' if you are lucky.
With GPL code you can guarantee buy in: they need to license it from you (asuming you are the sole copyright holder) under a different license than the GPL and you can dictate the payment terms.
Jeroen
Re:It's my flashBIOS chip... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like being screwed over. Yes, I do read all contracts I agree to. I'd suggest you do the same, you'd be horrified.
Then after I give permissions to that particular software company, I have to input a number to prove to the software that I actually bought it. And for this particular software I may need to call up the parent company and ask them "May I please have your permission to use this software that I legally bought?"
I don't like being treated like a criminal. I buy, I use, end of subject. I will not have to prove to anyone that I am law-abiding.
So I switched two years ago, and Free Software has given me countless personal freedoms that were unthinkable when I was using a non-free system. I no longer need to worry about legality when I want to heavily modify my system to my liking. I no longer feel as if I'm looking at a sealed black box whenever I want to learn something - the entire system is open to explore in any way I choose. The development of the programs I use are not dictated by any one entity, but instead by the users who have our needs in mind.
It sounds strange, but I think freely now. The technology I use is free for me to hack, rip apart, study, put together, package, Frankenstein into my own project, and so on. And through the freedom of knowledge given to me by free documentation, I have learned how to do just that.
Now when I think of using a non-Free system I am filled with contempt. Such a system would not be modifiable and explorable, but instead packaged together at the whim of someone else and kept from study. On top of this it's bound by an EULA which is morally deplorable and legally questionable. With the current copyright and patent laws, the actions of the largest software vendors, and the BSA breathing down everyone's necks... I refuse to use a non-Free system. I'd be giving up a hell of a lot more than I'm willing to part with.
(Note - please be kind, this is a deep subject and I tossed this together off the top of my head while trying to keep it short. This explanation is far from perfect.)
OpenBIOS rah rah rah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone should support and increase the compatibility of OpenBIOS!
OpenFirmware is the best BIOS standard ever, the joy of being able to code
from the command line and have non-interrupt-hijacking calls to the firmware,
a rudimentary HAL etc. is absolutely 100% cool.
It won't improve your Windows experience but who the hell cares about that?
It already has the support of Apple, Sun, SGI and IBM, comes in 32 and 64bit
versions in the standard, has a framebuffer, text console that redirects to
serial, video etc. automatically, blah blah blah.. Intel won't support it
because they like EFI.
But forget Intel too
Everyone should move to PowerPC, but then call me biased..
Re:It makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, it obvious from the quote above that you either:
1) Are a Troll
2) Are a Shill
3) Don't understand the GPL
When you write the software (as you stated above) you retain copyright to the software - then you are still the copyright holder. Thus even if you license it under the GPL you can turn around and license the same thing under the BSD, X, Mozilla, your own custom license, and anything else you so choose - YOU ARE THE STILL COPYRIGHT HOLDER.
Thus when you take somebody else's hard work that they have put under the GPL - then you have to abide by their terms. However, that does not stop you from approaching them asking for a closed source license or "commercial" to their code. The reason they can do that is because THEY RETAIN COPYRIGHT TO THEIR CODE.
Sorry to use caps/bold, but I really don't think the previous poster could understand these concepts without it. They have only be discussed several hundred times and still people seem to shift their keyboards into overdrive before their brains get out of neutral.
Re:It's my flashBIOS chip... (Score:3, Insightful)
Big whoop.
Wrong implicit assumption! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Can the microcode can be used in a malevolent manner that exercises corporate control at the expense of the invidual? Companies have already threatened to do this with the BIOS (eg. DRM and such). Graphics firmware probably will never threaten the control over the general-purpose computing like the CPU bios can, but if it does, we can implement an OSS version at that point.
Mmm_coffee++ (Score:3, Insightful)
RMS is not only the last person I would expect to put ego above cause, he is one of the few people in the world who truely understands what he started.
I wish people would just chill about the guy.
Kind Regards
Re:Trusted Computing & DRM (Score:2, Insightful)
Question--who made Intel the king? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
However if you plan to distribute someone else's GPLed code to any third parties, then all the code in there would have to be GPLed and the source code would have to be made available.
If YOU wrote all of b and c, then things are easier. Just put your code out under multiple licenses. You can GPL b and c and put it on a website AND license the same code to your company under a proprietary license for use in 'abc' - some companies, like Trolltech, actually make a living by producing GPLed code, and selling proprietary software companies the right to make derivative works of the same software under non-GPLed terms.
Hope this helps.
Re:How would "cooperating"..... (Score:5, Insightful)
There: You've just underlined the need for an Open Source BIOS yourself. Why would any company consider the interests of its customers if there's no obvious, immediate profit in it? And if they wouldn't, why would you trust their proprietary, closed-source software?
What can it gain by winning over a bunch of geeks?
Because the Geeks are the ones who advise everybody else on what motherboard to buy.
Re:Mmm_coffee++ (Score:5, Insightful)
His problem is that he's not the most social creature around, so he tends to come off poorly due to his social ineptitude. Take his speech about free documentation at the O'Reilly conference. While it is very nice (and appreciated) that they're releasing awesome manuals, it's not free for all to use. This threatens Free Documentation -- Since there's these non-free manuals that rock (bought a few of 'em myself), people will be less inclinded to write good Free (speech) documentation, which the movement is in dire need of.
RMS was 1010% correct. However, he told it at the worst possible moment in the most outright manner possible, so he came off as a jerk.
Listen to his words. Watch his actions. But try to ignore how he presents the former. He just doesn't know people all that well.
Re:The problem is, "what do you mean by BIOS?" (Score:4, Insightful)
It hasn't been done yet (to my knowledge) but that shouldn't stop you right?
Reading your text I think you have a few misconceptions on what Open Firmware [sun.com] is and which features it provides. I suggest reading this very insightful introduction [ibm.com].
If you are an embedded systems engineer, what do you think about alternate approaches like Tinyboot [tinyboot.com]?
Re:It makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)
As a matter [surfwax.com] of [gentoo-portage.com] fact, yes [kuro5hin.org]. I do.
And, I know for a fact I'm not the only one.
Open Operating System, Open BIOS, and Open Microcode. Fine!!
Re:It makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
A, B and C are the source code for three software projects. (A) represents the result of compiling A into object code. (A+B) represents the binary you get when you link together (A) and (B).
Copyright law prevents you from distributing a work derived from someone else's work. If you want to do so, you must obtain the copyright holder's permission. So, What contributes a derived work?
Most people seem to agree with RMS' opinion, that compiling A against (the headers of) B/C makes the resultant object code, (A), into a derived work (Otherwise, there is no difference between the GPL and LGPL). Continuing, (B) is obviously derived from B. Finally, (A+B+C) is derived from (A), (B) and (C).
Therefore, if you don't own the copyrights on B and C, you may not distribute (A+B+C) unless you get permission from the copyright holders of B/C. If B/C are under the GPL, then you can obtain that permission by releasing A under the GPL as well. Some projects (e.g., QT, MySQL) will also grant you permission if you buy a license from them.
Note that if you don't *distribute* (A+B+C), then you don't have to make A available under the GPL. It is perfectly safe to use GPL'd components for internal projects.
Now, if you own the copyrights on B and C then you are free to distribute any derived work in any way you you wish. But you must be careful to ensure that you really *are* the copyright holder.
Say you merged a patch from someone else into B. Now the copyright holders of B is the set (you, someone else). You must therefore obtain the permission of the other guy before you can distribute something derived from *their* work. Or, you could create (A) from a version of B that does not contain the problematic code. This is why many projects require you to sign over the copyright on any code you contribute to them.
So far, this has been pretty simple. However, the above is only my understanding of how people treat code that is compiled into object code, and then linked together at compile time to create a binary executable; the C/C++ case. To consider other languages requires us to look at *who* is creating the derived works.
For example, with Java and Java-like systems, (A+B+C) is created by the user at runtime. (A) and (B) and (C) are created by the person who ran javac. Is (A) derived from B or C? You'd have to ask the copyright holders of B and C.
What about Python/Perl/Shell? Different again. Ask your lawyer.
Finally, I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, it is merely a random rambling that is worth precicely what you paid for it.
Most of this remains untested in a court. For a 100% correct answer to "what makes a work derived" you must ask the copyright holders of the work you may be deriving from, and hope they don't change their minds and sue you anyway.
Re:You can't eliminate companies (Score:3, Insightful)
The answer is no one. No one who does open source for fun, for the purity aspect will want to do this (Although I imagine there are a few masochists out there who don't understand dual licensing). Companies who want to do open source will do something like Sun and their CDDL, or won't do OSS at all.
Re:It makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)
There's of course, the special case where you write all the code yourself, and you can do whatever you want with that, obviously.
If you choose to use GPLed code, as a user, you can do mostly whatever you want.
As a distributor, if you distribute code based on GPLed code, it must be GPLed as a whole.
Again, the user after you, has the freedom to do whatever he wants. The idea is that if you didn't GPL the whole project, you would be taking freedom away from the user, and that's what the GPL is trying to prevent.
In the role of the distributor, the GPL doesn't care that much about you. In the role of a user, you have everything you want.
So, you can GPL all the code you want. If you want to use GPLed software, do the GPL. If you don't, do your own thing, or use BSD license software.
Re:It's my flashBIOS chip... (Score:3, Insightful)
Software patent laws make it almost completely impossible to legally be a programmer nowadays. Copyright laws make it so that nothing returns to the public domain, making our common culture forever a property to be bought and sold. Companies lobby congress to create laws which allow them to enforce their copyrights at the cost of due process (DMCA). One entity in particular owns the software which runs 90% of the world's computers, and is flexing this power to it's fullest extent at the detriment of the public good. Draconian licenses are included with the programs that run the world, forcing the users to give unmoral control of their computers to the software authors.
This all has gotten so far out of hand that a lot of ebooks come with licenses which restrict you from reading an ebook out loud. Want to read a copy of a Dr. Seuss book from your PDA to your 4 year old daughter? Tough, can't legally do it.
As I look at how we allow ourselves to be chained by our own laws and software which runs this modern world, I can't help but to be eternally grateful that Free Software exists. When I someday have children I want to be able for them to take things apart and tinker with them like I did, for example.
Oh, and I already walked the dog today. She. Loves. Squirrels. And the sunrise was beautiful glistening off the pond at the park. Fun fact - Let's say I make a video of the sunrise on that pond. I'd be able to take snapshots of that movie and email it to you easily, but you wouldn't because Windows Media Player doesn't allow you to take screenshots of a video running, even if it is your own video that you made. That whole piracy thing needs to be stopped, and lord knows what someone could do with a screengrab...
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
Free Software is not Open Source. Do I want an Open Source system? Hell no! I want an entirely Free system from software down to the hardware! I use GNU/Linux because I support the idea of Free Software, not because it doesn't cost me money to use. In fact, it does cost me to not use non-Free software; some of it isn't as usable as the proprietary counterpart and may require me to work on the code itself to make it do what I need.
But I have the freedom to modify the code if I want to. I'd like this with my firmware too. OpenBIOS is promising for the firmware replacement. The Open Graphics Card project is progressing and will finally give me a decent graphics card that is well supported and documented (I have a Radeon 9100; it is the last ATi card I will purchase since they to have gone down the path of not even providing specs to the DRI developers...so no more Matrox, ATi, nVidia, ...).
The graphics card thing is a really good example of why we should demand Free Hardware. Unless you give up your Freedom and use proprietary drivers, you no longer can use a modern graphics card and get 3d acceleration under X. Printers are another good example; look at how many printers have no Ghostscript backend because the manufacturers refuse to provide specifications for their proprietary protocols. Specs are nice but open hardware documentation would be nicer since we could then e.g. reprogram the printer's firmware to support PostScript (or if it is too slow for that, something like PPA that we have decent drivers for).
The Neuros [neurosaudio.com] has had its firmware [sf.net] and even full hardware specs [neurosaudio.com] released! Neuros Audio isn't going out of business; not even close to it. The hardware schematics release may not be immediately useful but the firmware release is; things are progressive with FLAC support and soon MPC, things that never would have happened if the firmware had remain non-free software. Look at Rockbox [rockbox.org] too. The Rockbox firmware is far superior to the stock firmware.
Free Software needs to run on a system that is Free down to its lowest level. We live in a world now where everyone is trying to kill us with things like hardware-based Digital Restrictions Management. We must demand at the very least Free firmware for the hardware and good enough hardware interface specs to actually do something with the firmware (stuff like e.g. the Verilog for the ASIC doesn't matter so much when you have that, but it would be nice to have).
european view (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, OR maybe that's an easy excuse to downplay any critique on Amerikans and the USA from us europeans.
For sure, there is a danger in using clichés and stereotypes, but it is also true, that those clichés *DO* hold a lot of water. Actually, I can't say I know of any well-established cliché about the nature of a people, that didn't had some truth in it. And that includes those of my own people/country, even though I would be hardpressed to acknowledge them in public. (Something which most USA-citizens seem to have too, only in a bigger national-zealot-reflex manner).
But actually, they ARE true, to a large extend.
The danger comes from turning that cliché into an absolute viewpoint: that ALL europeans or americans are like that. Being rational and honest, no one can actually claim such a thing, of course. So, while I may think that, in general, the USA - and especially it's current government - is arrogant, narrow-minded, uncritical and downright hypocrite idiots, I temper this viewpoint with the knowledge the USA also had and has critical thinkers and rebels that show signs of independend thought, intelligence and a cosmopolitan attitude, like Carl Sagan, M.Moore, R.Stallman and some others I've come to know by their work. Those people certainly deserve respect.
It does not follow the USA as a whole deserves respect. Certainly not like things are going currently. However you want to turn it, you must realise that the USA is behaving like a bully, and is increasingly acting - especially since the end of the cold war - like the world is their backyard where they can do what they want.
This is not surprising, since they ARE currently the only true superpower left, and being the strongest (as bullies usually go), they think everything is permitted. Sooner or later, they will discover their error.
Re:Follow the money (Score:2, Insightful)
Theoretically, yes. But reverse-engineering is not as good as having access to specs. (and that's why RMS and others are asking to disclose them in the first place).
BTW, having people reverse engineer their hardware is not something they can influence, but they may choose to keep the specs secret (or offering access only under NDA).
Re:Wrong implicit assumption! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You can't eliminate companies (Score:5, Insightful)
How does something that directly [debian.org] contradicts [redhat.com] reality [gentoo.org] get modded insightful ?
The current scarecrow to throw at your enemies is terrorism, not communism. Please follow your times.
Also, if you meant that shared ownership implies communism, it logically follows that any company with more than one shareholder is communistic.
AFAIK most open source projects are (or at least started as) the work of people, not corporations.
Um, isn't this exactly what the company releasing its code would want ? That anyone who distributes products based on the code must release any enhancments to the code under GPL as well ?
You do realize that just because you, the original author and copyright holder, released version 1.0 under the GPL, doesn't mean you that you are under any obligation to release version 1.0.1 under any license - assuming, of course, that you own the copyrights to all the code in version 1.0.1 ? Licenses are used togrant rights, under certain terms, to people who don't have the copyright to whatever is being licensed.
Or were you bemoaning over companies inability to take GPL'd code, add some features, and sell the result as their own proprietary product ? If so, keep on lamenting; you won't get any sympathy from me.
Three Arguments For An Open BIOS (Score:4, Insightful)
Offhand, I can think of three strong arguments for an OpenBIOS.
- Decreased obsolence: As others have noted, changes in BIOS requirements can be responded to given the BIOS source. BIOS maintenance is no longer at the whim of the hardware vendor. This could extend the useful life of hardware.
- Decreased HW lockout: As others have noted, the move toward "Trusted Computing" could easily take a sinister turn. An open BIOS would make it much harder for hardware vendors to lock out libre software.
- Increased OS compatibility: Many seem concerned about getting hardware compatibility right in an open BIOS. The flip side of this is that getting the BIOS to work with an open OS would become much easier. The premiere example is ACPI, where the BIOS often has bugs with corresponding Windows workarounds.
I think the goal of producing an open BIOS that works well on a number of machines is quite a difficult one. The rewards of achieving it, however, seem high.Re:You can't eliminate companies (Score:2, Insightful)
"This license may be modified at any time, even retroactively, by Zesiger Inc., or whoever it chooses to serve in it's stead, in order to preempt all possible legal issues which may pervert the intent of this license."
Retroactively modifying the terms under which I'm already using code? Sorry but I don't believe they took legal advice on that and I wouldn't touch anything that attempted anything so insane.
Re:Does Anyone KNow (Score:3, Insightful)
A) because it doesn't exist
B) because if they release documentation, they might be compelled to support it, and
C) because they may not be able to change and evolve the interface if they have to due to unyielding consumer expectation
In that order.
Very rarely is it truly about trade secrets or competitive advantage.
treacherous indeed! (Score:1, Insightful)
Real BIOSes really do have microsoft-specific hacks to make things work at all. Real BIOSes seldom get such basic things as ECC correct. Real BIOSes do have to work around specific errata for every chip on every unique board. Yes, that includes different boot code for a revCG AMD CPU versus a revE AMD CPU.
And real BIOSes go through some amount of testing *before* going into the field.
When you open-source BIOS you will see less stability, less lab-testing and way too much bad field testing, and way too much guesswork since you won't have all the register fields given too you. It will be quite horrendous, even though you may get BIOS updates more frequently they will all suck.
Re:Trusted Computing & DRM (Score:3, Insightful)
Like putting RFID tags in everyone's backside, there are real potential benefits but incredible social risks of the approach. And "Trusted Computing" is precisely one of the things that an open-source BIOS community would help manage and keep from doing things it blatantly *should not* do, such as be used to prevent motherboard makers from preventing you from using any OS other than their vendor-approved one (Windows).
Re:It's my flashBIOS chip... (Score:3, Insightful)
Other than boot and (maybe) shutdown, sure. It used to for suspend/resume, but no longer thanks to ACPI.
enabliing multiple CPU's
Nope. SMP PCs (and most SMP computers??) boot on one CPU. OS is responsible for booting other CPUs. (though, this may depend on BIOS having properly described them, it also obviously requires a hardware facility to allow OS to kick a CPU into running.).
managing the interrupts
Nope, that'd be your OS 9/10. Some computers do have a facility to allow firmware to trap certain interrupts/events (eg SMM on PCs I think) - but it should be rare.
affecting reboot behavior
In the case of Linux, try kexec - reboot linux directly from linux
manipulating power-on or sleep or suspend behavior
Nope, given everything is ACPI these days (BIOS callback into APM facilities being deprecated), that'd be the ACPI AML interpreter in your OS twiddling the relevant bits (based on ACPI information provided at boot by BIOS).
turning down the CPU clock when things over-heat
Other than for emergency use, no that'd be cpufreqd or acpid or similar responding to heat changes based on data gathered via OS drivers and effecting action again via OS drivers. In the emergency case (eg due to fan failure, or due to aforementioned daemons not doing their job on a marginal system) then yes that'd be firmware responding via aforementioned SMM (or SMM like) facilities.
reporting the temperature, reporting the CPU voltages, and everything else you need to know at the basic hardware levels.
Nope, that'd be the driver in your OS for your hardware monitoring chip (see linux lm-sensors), which are accessed via very simple serial bus.
About the only way your post could be classed as "informative" is if it were 20 years ago and the concept of OS was restricted to MS-DOS (BIOS doing most of the hardware work) or OS-in-firmware computers like original Apple IIs and Macintosh. These days the role of the PC BIOS for run-time thankfully has been almost eliminated. The PC BIOS most important function, other than initial hardware setup and initial programme load (IPL), is to properly describe the hardware (IOW ACPI). After IPL (i'll fudge and classify grub/lilo/$whatever-second-stage-loader making BIOS calls as part of IPL) it's your OS and only your OS running, other than for (hopefully) rare SMM traps.
How did you manage to be moderated informative? My mind is boggling so much i'm starting to feel dizzy...