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 have no mac to look at them). There are various problems > > though : > > > > 1) to build those files, not only a mac system is needed, but also an > > older version of the code warrior compiler. > > Yes, and it seems quite hard to circumvent. > > > => 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 contrib", and try to find a better solution for next > releases. > > > Well, i, and the upstream author too, think that it should be possible > > to rewrite this small boot sector yourself. This would need good > > oldworld pmac knowledge, which i don't have. It seems only a small > > part of the 1K boot-sector is used. No idea what the source code of > > this would look like. Jeremie, if it came to that, since you seem to > > have some of the knowledge and the hardware, would you feel like > > investigating this ? > > It sounds like something possible, however it'd be quite hard and I'm > not sure it'd be the most urgent thing. > > I'd first make miBoot buildable with free tools, then write a boot > sector specifically targetted at it. Then we could have miBoot in main, > but not before. Still it'd be a big amount of work (I'm not such a > knowledgeable guy about oldworld, I never used such a machine before I > tried to make it boot d-i.) > > > Do we have a response or a strategie for those cases, except the "give > > instructions for the user to build the stuff himself from various URLS", > > which was used, if i remember well, for miboot in boot-floppies. > > No, miBoot and the said boot block used to sit around in the > boot-floppies source code, without any license or source code. I'd say > the legal situation will be improved much already ! > > Would it be really problematic to upload the boot block along with > miboot in contrib or non-free ?
It could go to non-free i think, 1) makes it contrib, but 2) makes it non-free. Problem is that the debian-installer package which builds the stuff used by the daily runs of the CDs is in main, and thus can't depend nor build-depend on contrib or non-free, which is why i wrote to both debian-legal and debian-boot. Have you already spoken with someone (joeyh or even aj) about this 'sarge-ignore' plan of yours ? BTW, benh told me that the source code is in the .sit. Can you confirm that ? Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
