By "marginal", I was thinking more of whether a BIOS is possible to ignore. The vast majority of PC owners never update their BIOS at all. If you buy a motherboard a couple years after its release, there may not be any significant updates from the manufacturer. It's not like the OS where you're downloading updates multiple times a month.
This is separate from the question of whether the BIOS should be open source. I'm inclined to think that it should, especially after the motherboard has been out for a few years.
> The vast majority of PC owners never update their BIOS at all.
I wonder if this is true now that Windows will do it automatically. I have been more than once surprised to see a computer updating its firmware after a Windows reboot.
Pretty much all laptops are getting firmware updates delivered through Windows Update (or a vendor-specific automatic tool), and usually for several components rather than just the motherboard UEFI firmware. And they definitely need those fixes, because the annual cadence of product refreshes means they're shipping from the factory half-baked
This is separate from the question of whether the BIOS should be open source. I'm inclined to think that it should, especially after the motherboard has been out for a few years.