High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Open Firmware, or OpenBoot in Sun Microsystems parlance, is a standard defining the interfaces of a computer firmware system, formerly endorsed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It originated at Sun, and has been used by Sun, Apple, IBM, and most other non-x86 PCI chipset vendors. Open Firmware allows the system to load platform-independent drivers directly from the PCI card, improving compatibility.