Differences between UDK and EDK II

Frequently asked questions about the differences between UDK i.e. UDK2017 and EDK II

What is the difference between UDK and EDK II?

• EDK II is the open source project for which volunteers (contributors) participate in development. The tip of this project is being developed and updated constantly for fixes and enhancements.
• The UDK releases are NOT maintained by volunteer. Each UDK release is a fully validated implementation by Intel for a specific revision of the EDK II source. The latest UDK Release Notes denotes the git revision used for each of the validated UDK release.
• The UDK release contains a validated subset of the packages available from the EDK II project.

How do other 3rd party companies use UDK?

• Other 3rd party companies, including BIOS vendors use the UEFI conformance BIOS implementation based on the UDK release which Intel validates.
• See also the Intel UEFI community for more information https://software.intel.com/en-us/firmware/

UDK is stable

• It is NOT “always changed.” The last release of UDK was UDK2017 June 2017.
• The NEXT release of UDK is being discussed and will include any updates those that use it have requested to be included. The release cadence will likely be, perhaps, once every six months – completely dependent upon what feedback comes in from the open source community and customers that use it.