Hi
On Tue, Mar 06, 2001 at 10:59:10PM -0800, Chip Salzenberg wrote:
> According to John Summerfield:
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] said:
> > > First, the easy thing [skip this paragraph if you could care less
> > > about Debian policies]. Debian has set itself a policy to seperate
> > > entirely free software packages (`main') from free software packages
> > > which need a non-free component to run (`contrib') [...]
> >
> > Linux (the kernel) is GPL. Right?
> > on Intel, it absolutely requires a BIOS to boot. Right?
>
> Right. Right.
>
> > BIOSes are non-free. Right?
>
> Wrong, sorta.
>
> While all extant consumer-ready i386 BIOSes are currently non-free, a
> free BIOS could be created to replace them. And in fact there are at
> least two projects (FreeBIOS and LinuxBIOS) to do just that.
In which case... While all extant consumer-ready plex86 BIOSes
are currently non-free (i.e. Elpin), a free BIOS could be
created to replace them. And in fact there are at least two
projects (FreeBIOS and LinuxBIOS) that might be able to be used
to do just that.
BTW, there's also OpenBIOS. LinuxBIOS uses code from either
Open or FreeBIOS, can't remember off hand which. They
switched from one to the other.
So what's the difference between Plex86 and the Linux kernel
when you look at it this way? Is it because there is only one
BIOS that currently works with Plex86 and that BIOS is non-free?
Also, isn't it possible to get Plex86 to jump directly to a
Linux kernel image or something instead of loading the BIOS and
getting the BIOS to boot the OS? I remember something along
these lines, but I may have it wrong. If this is the case, then
Plex86 does NOT require a BIOS to run, in which case it does not
DEPEND on the Elpin BIOS, but works best with the Elpin BIOS.
i.e. the plex86 package can recommend the non-free elpin bios
package instead of depending on it. Wouldn't that be enough to
put it into main instead of contrib/non-free?
--
Michael Wood | Tel: +27 21 762 0276 | http://www.kingsley.co.za/
[EMAIL PROTECTED] | Fax: +27 21 761 9930 | Kingsley Technologies
