The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a specification that defines a software interface between an operating system and platform firmware. UEFI is meant as a replacement for the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) firmware interface, present in all IBM PC-compatible personal computers. In practice, most UEFI images have legacy support for BIOS services. It can be used to allow remote diagnostics and repair of computers, even without another operating system.
The original EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) specification was developed by Intel. Some of its practices and data formats mirror ones from Windows. In 2005, UEFI deprecated EFI 1.10 (final release of EFI). The UEFI specification is managed by the Unified EFI Forum.
Read more about Unified Extensible Firmware Interface: History, Contents, Criticism
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“The man who knows governments most completely is he who troubles himself least about a definition which shall give their essence. Enjoying an intimate acquaintance with all their particularities in turn, he would naturally regard an abstract conception in which these were unified as a thing more misleading than enlightening.”
—William James (1842–1910)