Re: Debian-installer, older hardware, boot loaders, miboot & amiboot & ..

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 12:08:20PM +0200, Jeremie Koenig wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 09:16:14AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > The problematic file comes in a mac .sit format, is claimed to be GPL by
> > the author, and include the source in the above mentioned .sit (no idea
> > though, since i have no mac to look at them). There are various problems
> > though :
> > 
> >   1) to build those files, not only a mac system is needed, but also an
> >   older version of the code warrior compiler.
> 
> Yes, and it seems quite hard to circumvent. 
> 
> > => would mean contrib probably, but debian-installer is in main.
> 
> The plan was to request a sarge-ignore tag on the "d-i build-depends on
> miboot, which is in contrib", and try to find a better solution for next
> releases.
> 
> > Well, i, and the upstream author too, think that it should be possible
> > to rewrite this small boot sector yourself. This would need good
> > oldworld pmac knowledge, which i don't have. It seems only a small
> > part of the 1K boot-sector is used. No idea what the source code of
> > this would look like. Jeremie, if it came to that, since you seem to
> > have some of the knowledge and the hardware, would you feel like
> > investigating this ?
> 
> It sounds like something possible, however it'd be quite hard and I'm
> not sure it'd be the most urgent thing.
> 
> I'd first make miBoot buildable with free tools, then write a boot
> sector specifically targetted at it. Then we could have miBoot in main,
> but not before. Still it'd be a big amount of work (I'm not such a
> knowledgeable guy about oldworld, I never used such a machine before I
> tried to make it boot d-i.)
> 
> > Do we have a response or a strategie for those cases, except the "give
> > instructions for the user to build the stuff himself from various URLS",
> > which was used, if i remember well, for miboot in boot-floppies.
> 
> No, miBoot and the said boot block used to sit around in the
> boot-floppies source code, without any license or source code. I'd say
> the legal situation will be improved much already !
> 
> Would it be really problematic to upload the boot block along with
> miboot in contrib or non-free ?

It could go to non-free i think, 1) makes it contrib, but 2) makes it
non-free. Problem is that the debian-installer package which builds the
stuff used by the daily runs of the CDs is in main, and thus can't
depend nor build-depend on contrib or non-free, which is why i wrote to
both debian-legal and debian-boot.

Have you already spoken with someone (joeyh or even aj) about this
'sarge-ignore' plan of yours ? 

BTW, benh told me that the source code is in the .sit. Can you confirm
that ?

Friendly,

Sven Luther