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

Hello, I have been trying, with help from Jeremie Koenig, to get debian-installer to work on oldworld powermacs, with the help of miboot using boot floppies. Everything is ready for it, except one package which is not yet in the archive, and which proved to be legally nightmarish, so i have some s

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

Maybe we could get the boot-sector code declared "OK to use" by Apple? It would be a "hack the system" kind of thing, but I suppose technically they wouldn't have to release the copyright on the source code for the boot sector, just the derived sequence of binary bits. Indeed, Apple may have

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 04:33:29AM -0500, Rick Thomas wrote: > Maybe we could get the boot-sector code declared "OK to use" by Apple? Yeah, altough to go in main, it needs to be modifiable also. That said, i have some doubts about the value of a modification of such a boot sector, especially since

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

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 : >

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

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

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

Sven Luther wrote: >Also, this pose the problem of various bootloaders for other, especially >older hardware. I know that at least the amiga/m68k and amiga/powerpc >variant depend on the amiboot/apusboot bootloader, which altough GPLed, >can only be built with the free gcc toolchain on amiga OS, p

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 12:48:49PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > Sven Luther wrote: > > >Also, this pose the problem of various bootloaders for other, especially > >older hardware. I know that at least the amiga/m68k and amiga/powerpc > >variant depend on the amiboot/apusboot bootloader, which a

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

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: > > => 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 cont

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 04:24:05PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: > 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: > > > => would mean contrib probably, but debian-installer is in main. > > > > The plan was to request a

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

Jeremie Koenig wrote: > 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. This is the first I've heard of this. Has the sarge-ignore status of the GFDL docs really created such a slippery s

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > 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. > > This is the first I've heard of this. Has th

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 07:27:33PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > Sven Luther wrote: > > > Well, the solution would be to force add the miboot stuff to the > > > debian-installer svn tree, and use it to build. This would make > > > debian-installer contrib/non-free though, which is why i asked for

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

Sven Luther wrote: > Well, we had it in woody boot-floppies, it seems. I will be charatable and assume that was an accident, similar to many of the dozens of other non-free peices of software we have shipped in woody, and removed from sarge. > Also, maybe we should remove d-i from main altogether

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

Here's a thought. First some background: Last night, just to prove it could be done, I succeeded (first try) in using BootX under MacOS9 on an OldWorld PowerMac G3 (beige mini-tower) to load and run the debian-installer kernel and initrd downloaded from:

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

On Sunday 28 March 2004 23:32, Rick Thomas wrote: > It's still possible to use quik or miboot to get a completely > "macOS free" machine, but we can leave that as an exercise for the > serious hackers. Actually on some old powermac clones (like mine, a Umax C500 with a lot of gadgets, like G3, et

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 12:29:42PM -0600, Steve Langasek wrote: > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 07:27:33PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > > Sven Luther wrote: > > > > Well, the solution would be to force add the miboot stuff to the > > > > debian-installer svn tree, and use it to build. This would make

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 02:32:49PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > Sven Luther wrote: > > Well, we had it in woody boot-floppies, it seems. > > I will be charatable and assume that was an accident, similar to many of > the dozens of other non-free peices of software we have shipped in > woody, and remov

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 03:32:18PM -0500, Rick Thomas wrote: > Here's a thought. First some background: > > Last night, just to prove it could be done, I succeeded (first try) > in using BootX under MacOS9 on an OldWorld PowerMac G3 (beige > mini-tower) to load and run the debian-installer kern

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

Rick Thomas wrote: > I got as far as the point where the d-i tries to install a > bootloader. It died there because there is no boot loader for the > oldworld subarchitecture. It's good to know that it got that far. > Declare that all OldWorld machines must have a minimal MacOS > partition wit

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

Sven Luther wrote: > If i came up with the following : > > 1) A description in text form of what the individual bits of this 1K > boot sector does, and what is needed for miboot booting. > 2) a small C program or shell script which generate said 1K boot > sector from some kind of more for

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

Sven Luther wrote: > 1) A description in text form of what the individual bits of this 1K > boot sector does, and what is needed for miboot booting. > 2) a small C program or shell script which generate said 1K boot > sector from some kind of more formal version of the above description. If y

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 10:30:23PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > Sven Luther wrote: > > > 1) A description in text form of what the individual bits of this 1K > > boot sector does, and what is needed for miboot booting. > > 2) a small C program or shell script which generate said 1K boot > >

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 04:33:34PM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > Sven Luther wrote: > > If i came up with the following : > > > > 1) A description in text form of what the individual bits of this 1K > > boot sector does, and what is needed for miboot booting. > > 2) a small C program or shell s

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

Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I have not seen the code, so if someone describe this in detail to me, I > can then write a free reimplementation. > Now, we probably don't have the toolchain to do this, and a full cross > compiler for a handfull of instructions is not worth it. Huh? I

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

Sven Luther wrote: > Rick wrote: > > Now the part of debian-installer that died on me last night has an > > easy fix: Simply do not install any boot loader at all for that > > subarchitecture. > > Rick, Quik can easily be used to boot from CD, no problem, sadly it > cannot be used to boot from

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

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 12:52:12AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > I have not seen the code, so if someone describe this in detail to me, I > > can then write a free reimplementation. > > > Now, we probably don't have the toolchain to do this, and a

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 07:00:06PM -0500, Rick Thomas wrote: > > > Sven Luther wrote: > > Rick wrote: > > > Now the part of debian-installer that died on me last night has an > > > easy fix: Simply do not install any boot loader at all for that > > > subarchitecture. > > > > Rick, Quik can easi

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

I'm sorry. I don't have the skills in assembler language to help with this phase. However, I'll happily test things on my farm of old Macs of various flavors. For what it's worth, since MacOS7.6 and (I think) 8.6 boot on M68k Macs, the boot sector is very likely to be in M68k machine languag

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 07:27:33PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > > Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > > 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

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 09:16:14AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > 2) a small file, the boot1 macos ressource, a 1K boot-sector to be > copied to the floppy boot sector, is taken from the mac os system > file. This is non-free, binary only, altough, well, the file in > question only contains so

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

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 04:05:48PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > Hacker #2 affirms that he has never looked at the existing boot > sector, and will not do so in the future. He or she understands MacOS > well enough to know how to hand-code 1kB worth of assembly (or > possibly compilable C code

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

Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 12:52:12AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > Huh? Is the bootsector use written in a kind of machine language that > > the regular as(1) for the architecture does not support? I thought > > that i386 was the only platform with *tha

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

Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Worse case scenario, this could be clean-room reimplemented. 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.

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

Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Worse case scenario, this could be clean-room reimplemented. Before doing that, somebody ought to approach Apple and ask explicit permission to reverse-engineer the boot-block code and distribute the reverse-engineered sour

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

Scripsit Lewis Jardine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > 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

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

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 10:56:21PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 12:52:12AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > > > Huh? Is the bootsector use written in a kind of machine language that > > > the regular as(1) for the architectur

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

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 10:56:21PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 12:52:12AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > > > Huh? Is the bootsector use written in a kind of machine language that > > > the regular as(1) for the architectur

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

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 04:01:30PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 07:27:33PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > > > Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > > > The plan was to request a sarge-ignore tag on the "d-i build-depends on

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

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 01:10:36PM -0800, Jeff Bailey wrote: > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 04:05:48PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > Hacker #2 affirms that he has never looked at the existing boot > > sector, and will not do so in the future. He or she understands MacOS > > well enough to know

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

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 11:53:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Worse case scenario, this could be clean-room reimplemented. > > Before doing that, somebody ought to approach Apple and ask explicit > permission to reverse-engineer the boot-bl

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 10:30:23PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > Sven Luther wrote: > > > 1) A description in text form of what the individual bits of this 1K > > boot sector does, and what is needed for miboot booting. > > 2) a small C program or shell script which generate said 1K boot > >

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 09:06:57AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 11:53:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > Worse case scenario, this could be clean-room reimplemented. > > > > Before doing that, somebody ought to app

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

On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 11:53:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Worse case scenario, this could be clean-room reimplemented. > > Before doing that, somebody ought to approach Apple and ask explicit > permission to reverse-engineer the boot-bl

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 01:02:33AM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > 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

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 10:36:20AM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote: > Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 10:30:23PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > > Sven Luther wrote: > > > Yes, that's somewhat more of an issue. I'd expect amiboot to be > > > buildable with

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

Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 10:30:23PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > Sven Luther wrote: > > Yes, that's somewhat more of an issue. I'd expect amiboot to be > > buildable without excessive effort, although the Amiga includes aren't > > Free. We can't really

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:26:20AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 11:53:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > Worse case scenario, this could be clean-room reimplemented. > > > > Before doing that, somebody ought t

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

Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 10:36:20AM +0200, Goswin von Brederlow wrote: > > Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 10:30:23PM +0100, Matthew Garrett wrote: > > > > Sven Luther wrote: > > > > Yes, that's somewhat more of an

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 04:33:04PM +0200, Jeremie Koenig wrote: > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > > Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > > 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

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

On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > 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. > > This is the first I've heard of this. Has th

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

Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 11:53:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Worse case scenario, this could be clean-room reimplemented. > > Before doing that, somebody ought to approach Apple and ask exp

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

Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > There's absolutely no point even implying that we need their permission > to reverse engineer anything, If we are going to distribute code that has been derived by reverse engineering, then we do need permission from the original copyright holder. I

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:38:31PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 04:33:04PM +0200, Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > > > Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > > > The plan was to request a sarge-ignore tag on the "d-i build-depends on

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

Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 10:56:21PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > Google "macintosh boot block" turns up official Apple information that > > seems like it might be what you're looking for. > I have a fear suspision that this may be more related to new

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 04:01:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 10:56:21PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > > Google "macintosh boot block" turns up official Apple information > > > that seems like it might be what you're look

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 04:01:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 10:56:21PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > > > Google "macintosh boot block" turns up official Apple information that > > > seems like it might be what you're l

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

On Tuesday, March 30, 2004, at 10:47 AM, Colin Watson wrote: On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 04:01:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 10:56:21PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: Google "macintosh boot block" turns up official Apple inform

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:38:31PM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 04:33:04PM +0200, Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > On Sun, Mar 28, 2004 at 11:55:03AM -0500, Joey Hess wrote: > > > Jeremie Koenig wrote: > > > > The plan was to request a sarge-ignore tag on the "d-i build-depends on

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

Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > There's absolutely no point even implying that we need their permission > > to reverse engineer anything, > > If we are going to distribute code that has been derived by reverse > engineering, then we

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

Scripsit Walter Landry <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > It's not the "reverse engineering" that needs permission; it's the > > "distribute derived code". > The spec has been reverse engineered. The code is then created from > the spec. That seems to break the

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 09:03:19AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 01:10:36PM -0800, Jeff Bailey wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 04:05:48PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > > > Hacker #2 affirms that he has never looked at the existing boot > > > sector, and will not do

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:40:33PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > There's absolutely no point even implying that we need their permission > > to reverse engineer anything, > > If we are going to distribute code that has been derived by reverse

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 10:56:25AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:26:20AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > You don't need permission to reverse-engineer anything. > > > > If we're going to talk to Apple, we should ask them to release the boot > > sector and anything else

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:38:27PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 11:53:49PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > Worse case scenario, this could be clean-room reimplem

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

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 03:15:21AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 09:03:19AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 01:10:36PM -0800, Jeff Bailey wrote: > > > On Mon, Mar 29, 2004 at 04:05:48PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > > > > > Hacker #2 affirms

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

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 03:17:42AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 10:56:25AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:26:20AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > You don't need permission to reverse-engineer anything. > > > > > > If we're going to talk to

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

Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:38:27PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > If the thing that is being reverse-engineered is covered by copyright, > > and the reverse-engineering follows it tightly enough that the result > > is a derivate of the original th

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

Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:40:33PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > It's not the "reverse engineering" that needs permission; it's > > the "distribute derived code". > If it's independently created, it's not derived. It's not, in the scenario I am

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

Henning Makholm wrote: I don't think your understanding of reverse-engineering is applicable in the U.S. I thin you don't understand which kind of reverse engineering I'm talking about. I'm afraid I am not able to be any clearer without repeating myself. Read my lips: I am *not* talking abou

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

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 01:13:09PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 03:38:27PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > > > If the thing that is being reverse-engineered is covered by copyright, > > > and the reverse-engineering follo

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

Scripsit Henning Makholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > I thin you don't understand which kind of reverse engineering I'm > talking about. I'm afraid I am not able to be any clearer without > repeating myself. Um, sorry for temporarily misplacing my temper here. I see now that I have indeed expressed myse

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

Scripsit Lewis Jardine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Henning Makholm wrote: > > Read my lips: I am *not* talking about "a *functionally* identical > > result" or "clean rooms". I am talking about a deliberate (and quick) > > reconstruction of assembler source for the excat bits that Apple has a > > copyri

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

Henning Makholm wrote: Scripsit Lewis Jardine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> If the code is as small and simple as described, clean-room implementation should take about as much time as getting a reply from Apple The problem with clean-room implementations is not so much producing them as debugging an

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

Scripsit Lewis Jardine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Henning Makholm wrote: > > The problem with clean-room implementations is not so much producing > > them as debugging and testing them enough to be reasonably sure that > > they will work in *all* computers that were built to accept the > > original. If

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

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 02:00:46PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > Notice that it is very probable that Apple will probably in this case not > assert copyright on this bit of obsolet code. That's not the way I'd bet. U.S. corporations tend to jealously guard everything they possibly can, and grasp fo

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

On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 08:22:02PM -0500, Walter Landry wrote: > The spec has been reverse engineered. The code is then created from > the spec. That seems to break the copyright link enough. It > certainly seemed to work for Compaq when they reverse engineered the > PC bios. I'm drifting off-t

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

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 02:06:11PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > Huh ? If it would be licenced under the MIT/X11 licence, there is no > need for the source code for us to distribute it ? I was figuring we'd just disassemble it and call that the source code. As long as that's true in practice for us

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

On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 02:29:22PM +0100, Henning Makholm wrote: > Um, sorry for temporarily misplacing my temper here. I see now that I > have indeed expressed myself ambguously. I originally wrote something > like > > Before we begin a clean-room reimplementation, we should ask > Apple

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

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 12:27:09AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > IMO we should do a clean-room implementation anyway. 1) Past > experiences with Apple have not been very fruitful, just ask the Linux > Mac68K hackers. Well, actually, they have been. It is true that Apple has long refused to giv

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

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 12:24:38AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 02:06:11PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > Huh ? If it would be licenced under the MIT/X11 licence, there is no > > need for the source code for us to distribute it ? > > I was figuring we'd just disassemble

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

On Thu, 2004-04-01 at 02:57, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 12:27:09AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > IMO we should do a clean-room implementation anyway. 1) Past > > experiences with Apple have not been very fruitful, just ask the Linux > > Mac68K hackers. > > Well, actuall

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

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 11:11:43AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > This would be a good solution. What about the later Apple licence ? > > > > If we can get it under the MIT/X11 license it doesn't matter what other > > licenses it's under. The MIT/X11 license is non-exclusive. > > Well, i ask,

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

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 09:57:21AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 12:27:09AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > IMO we should do a clean-room implementation anyway. 1) Past > > experiences with Apple have not been very fruitful, just ask the Linux > > Mac68K hackers. > >

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

On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 02:20:52AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 09:57:21AM +0200, Wouter Verhelst wrote: > > On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 12:27:09AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > IMO we should do a clean-room implementation anyway. 1) Past > > > experiences with Apple

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

On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 02:19:57AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 11:11:43AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > > This would be a good solution. What about the later Apple licence ? > > > > > > If we can get it under the MIT/X11 license it doesn't matter what other > > > li

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

On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 10:16:00AM -0700, Joel Baker wrote: > On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 02:19:57AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > 2-clause BSD, as used by the NetBSD Foundation, would be good, too. > > Er. Be careful with this statement. The Foundation's policy has varied > between at least (tha

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

Henning Makholm wrote: > Scripsit Branden Robinson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >> There's absolutely no point even implying that we need their permission >> to reverse engineer anything, > > If we are going to distribute code that has been derived by reverse > engineering, then we do need permission f

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

On Mar 28, 2004, at 18:52, Henning Makholm wrote: Huh? Is the bootsector use written in a kind of machine language that the regular as(1) for the architecture does not support? I thought that i386 was the only platform with *that* problem. Actually, probably yes. It's probably in m68k assembl

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

On Mar 30, 2004, at 01:20, Sven Luther wrote: I have a fear suspision that this may be more related to newworld, than the oldworld stuff needed for miboot, which may probably be varying between the different models we may need to support. That's the boot block people are arguing about? That i

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

On Mar 30, 2004, at 02:03, Sven Luther wrote: Notice that there is 200bytes or so of m68k asm, most of them A-trap calls to the Mac OS rom, concerned. I doubt you have much chance of getting anything but a 100% identical code, whatever the way you go at generating it. That is a good argument

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

I just had an interesting conversation with an Apple developer (Apple employee) regarding the legal status of the boot sector for oldworld Macs. He pointed out that Darwin runs (and boots) on (at least) the beige G3, and that's oldworld. I don't know anything about Darwin except that it's

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

On Thu, Apr 08, 2004 at 01:06:05AM -0400, Rick Thomas wrote: > > I just had an interesting conversation with an Apple developer > (Apple employee) regarding the legal status of the boot sector for > oldworld Macs. > > He pointed out that Darwin runs (and boots) on (at least) the beige > G3, an

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

On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 at 08:15:41PM -0400, Anthony DeRobertis wrote: > On Mar 30, 2004, at 01:20, Sven Luther wrote: > > > >I have a fear suspision that this may be more related to newworld, than > >the oldworld stuff needed for miboot, which may probably be varying > >between the different models w

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

On Thu, Apr 08, 2004 at 08:37:48AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > On Thu, Apr 08, 2004 at 01:06:05AM -0400, Rick Thomas wrote: > > > > I just had an interesting conversation with an Apple developer > > (Apple employee) regarding the legal status of the boot sector for > > oldworld Macs. > > > > He

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

Sorry for late reply. On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 09:03:19AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > Notice that there is 200bytes or so of m68k asm, most of them A-trap > calls to the Mac OS rom, concerned. I doubt you have much chance of > getting anything but a 100% identical code, whatever the way you go

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

Ryan Underwood wrote: > > Sorry for late reply. > > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 09:03:19AM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: >> >> Notice that there is 200bytes or so of m68k asm, most of them A-trap >> calls to the Mac OS rom, concerned. I doubt you have much chance of >> getting anything but a 100% ident

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

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 12:14:50AM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 02:00:46PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > Well, the US are mostly the most restrictive (unreasonable) juridiction > > on this kind of issues, so ... > > That's not my experience. The U.S. is very aggressive