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

[Henning Makholm <henning@makholm.net>]

Scripsit Lewis Jardine <s9902074@sms.ed.ac.uk>
> Henning Makholm wrote:

> > Before doing that, somebody ought to approach Apple and ask explicit
> > permission to reverse-engineer the boot-block code and distribute the
> > reverse-engineered source under a free license.

> If you're going to ask apple for permission to reverse-engineer, you
> might as well ask them if they're willing to license the boot block in
> a DFSG Free manner.

Yes, of course. My point was, I think, that it may tactically wise to
mention the reverse-engineering in the initial request. If the code is
really about 20 years old, it is quite possible that nobody at Apple
now knows where to start looking for the source, and then it would be
easier to get a "sure, go ahead and reverse engineer" than a "sure,
I'll tell an expensive programmer to spend a week trawling through the
old code heaps for the source your foolish DFSG says that you need".

-- 
Henning Makholm                        "Detta, sade de, vore rena sanningen;
                                 ty de kunde tala sanning lika väl som någon
                             annan, när de bara visste vad det tjänade til."