Microsoft’s Core UEFI division has today announced Project Mu. Available on GitHub now, the project is an open modular adaptation UEFI-BIOS. Project Mu is based on Intel’s TianoCore edk2 but offers modifications for creating scalable and maintainable patterns for modern devices.
On the official GitHub page, Microsoft says its built Mu around a concept about how UEFI development should be. Specifically, the company understood a UEFI product is part of an evolving collaboration that starts with creation and moved through shipping and maintenance.
“For too long the industry has built products using a “forking” model combined with copy/paste/rename and with each new product the maintenance burden grows to such a level that updates are near impossible due to cost and risk.”
Partners are often trapped in a web of legal situations and complex business arrangements. Products can often complicate matters as companies must combine open source industry-wide code and proprietary technology.
With Project Mu, developers can create products through a multi-repository that separates original source and standard code. Mu is a development of Microsoft’s own experience building Windows 10 PCs. It allows developers to scale up or down on IoT, Server, and PC.
Microsoft says its primary goal with Mu is to share active code for feedback and to spur partner collaboration. The company points out the project is open and active and is not just for testing. Indeed, Microsoft already leverages Project Mu on its own Surface devices.
Aiming for Collaboration
Project Mu will also seek to push a shift across the tech industry to drive collaborations. It is always amazing to think of Microsoft aiming for an open environment considering how staunch the company’s dismissal of open source once was:
“Today’s open source projects although extremely valuable are very resource intensive to interact with. This friction leads to major industry players avoiding public interaction thus diminishing the overall community’s value. The modern era of open source projects has incorporated new tools and procedures to lower this friction and it is our goal to leverage those tools.”
