Bug#587886: future of maintaining of the bootloader LILO
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On 07/10/2010 07:40 PM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Earlier you said this:
>
> Making a 23.0 release with nothing other
> than *broken* patches does not give [lilo a future]
>
> Ie, you implied that that was what Joachim has done. However, now you
> agree that he has done some good things. Exaggerating the alleged
> misdeeds of the people you are having a disagreement with does not do
> you any favours.
>
>> > - adds patches from Fedora and OpenSuSE
>> > (without explaining rationale for adding the patches, most of the
>> > patches 'work around' bugs rather than correcting the actual design faults);
> Would you care to give an example ? I appreciate it might be too much
> work for us all to go through every such patch and have you explain in
> detail what the real problem is and why the applied patch is not
> correct. But I think you should be able to point to an example or
> two.
>
>> > - fixes bugs that are already fixed in Debian 22.8 sources.
> Surely that is exactly one of the things an upstream maintainer should
> be doing ?
>
>> > - changes elements of the buildsystem that do not need to be changed;
> That seems like a bikeshed issue to me.
>
Hello:
Just in case i get another eye infection, and am unable to respond. Here
is a concise summary of my views on the issue. If that happens and the
TC needs more insight as to why I haven't been involved. Ian may forward
them the aforementioned private e-mail
William is right on that patch. That is a horrid way to comment an
assembly language statement (no offense intended). But what does it show
about Joachim'squalifications. I know I am probably not as well versed
as i should bein lilo's internals but I know more than the average bear
about x86 real
mode assembly, as I spent better part of six months almost exclusively
coding in it. although I have not done anything as complex as a
bootloader before I stand a reasonable chance of doing this right.
William is without question more qualified, though I think this exchange
shows why I'm backing Joachim. It is not as William supposes my desire
for brownie points, though in the interest of honesty being a DD has
been a goal of mine ever since i first read the SC at 14, and therefore
anything which advances that goal is a good thing to do. However in this
instance that is not the motivating reason. My motivation is the fact
that I know that for a fairly substantial number of users lilo works,
and other loaders don't. Why interfere with that if we don't have too.
I'd oppose the removal of loadlin for the same reasons, there are
users who need it because other bootloaders don't work for their bios,
with their keyboard, or whatever (although in the particular case of
loadlin I'm given to understand that it is the only bootloader with
screen reader support, but this is not the point). My point is for
whatever reason about 2,500 people have chosen lilo as bootloader over
extlinux, grub, etc. A bootloader is a critical part of the overall
system, and just arbitrarily, yanking one because some Debian
Contributer, no matter how smart/qualified he may be doesn't like it i
s
dangerous.
In my way of thinking that is even more dangerous then having someone
green at the wheel (if you'll pardon the expression). That is the reason
why I oppose what William intends to do, and have always opposed it.
If/When lilo falls out of use I will reconsider my stance on this but
for now that is the bottom line.
/Matt
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