Some say that only X.org needs a similar level of hardware access. Flashrom is working under Linux, *BSD, OpenSolaris, Mac
OS X and Windows (somewhat) and people use it to reflash BIOSes, graphics/network/SATA cards, a game console and to control a boatload of external flash programmers.

This talk gives a short overview of flashrom and its architecture, and then goes into detail about the work needed to port it to your favourite OS.