Bug#323182: a bit more about miboot's legal status

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

On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 08:15:26AM +0200, Jeremie Koenig wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 07:55:42AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote:
> > >   - miboot itself uses free-as-in-beer libraries from Apple, which are
> > >     shipped together with the source code, so we would have to ask
> > >     miboot's author to add an exception for them to its licensing terms,
> > >     which he hadn't done yet, though comments in the source distribution
> > >     seemed to indicate he's aware of the problem.
> > 
> > This doesn't make miboot free, and is not really an issue, since the boot
> > sector is not linked, i belive, but only agregated into the same media. Same
> > as your bios is not linked to lilo.
> 
> I understand this, but was speaking about a different problem. IIRC
> miBoot itself uses a non-free library from Apple, in addition to being
> loaded by a non-free bootloader.

Ah, which one ? I thought it only used codewarrior 4 to build, and then used
probably the runtime, not sure. What is this library you are speaking about ?

> > mkvmlinuz is different, it uses the already existing zImage.coff format, which
> > was in use before quik, yaboot or bootx where around.
> 
> My understanding was that oldworld OpenFirmware were broken wrt loading
> such images (I can't remember where I got this impresstion, though.)

Well, it is supposed to work, never tested though.

> Is there a way to load such an image from an old OpenFirmware?

Sure, usually by netbooting it.

> Also, does anyone expect quik to be loadable from a floppy? (ie would
> that work with those old broken OF's?)

There is work rumored to be started on this, and maybe another project
involving the m68k mac loader, if i remember well. I know at least p2mate and
aurelien where investigating this things.

> At the time I looked into the quik side, it seemed the only thing it
> missed was the ability to deduce the floppy device name from its
> configuration in order to be installable on a floppy, but I don't know
> wether this omission was deliberate or not.

I think the problem was the floppy driver, but then, no idea really.

Friendly,

Sven Luther