Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!hbetel
From: hbetel@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Heather Betel)
Subject: Re: <minix/minlib.h>
Message-ID: <1991May18.235206.9742@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
Organization: University of Waterloo
References: <9911@star.cs.vu.nl> <1991May12.143246.18877@MDI.COM> <9950@star.cs.vu.nl>
Date: Sat, 18 May 1991 23:52:06 GMT
Lines: 32

In article <9950@star.cs.vu.nl> ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
>What is not ok is to have the supplementary package contain the kernel, FS,
>MM, or other copyrighted code, neither in source or in binary form.  Thus
>the supplementary package has to remain a supplement, and not become an
>alternative to the PH version.  PH's lawyers won't accept that.  Saying that
>you wil only distribute to people who have a PH version has a low credibility.
>For this reason, NLMUG is perhaps not the ideal organization, since they are
>currently in "discussion" with PH's lawyers about various subjects of mutual
>interest.  The lawyers want their copyright to be respected.  That really
>isn't negotiable.
>
	The following is a suggestion that might make the
distribution of suplementary packages simpler. I would do it myself,
but since my hard drive is riddled with bad sectors, and I can't
afford a better one, (this one was free, and well worth the cost!) I
don't have a stable enough system to do much of anything...
	Suppose at boot, you have the standard stuff, such as the
serial drivers, floppy driver, hard-disk driver, and printer driver
loaded with the kernel, but not INIT, fs, and mmA. Instead, you have
loaded a fairly simple task that knows just enough to load all
the files in some directory, say /boot. In there, you could put an
implementation of mm, fs, and anything else that you might want. (I
guess init would go there too). This has a nice little side effect:
	You don't need to rebuild your boot disk to test a new
device driver. You just need to modify a 'temporary' root disk.
Installing and testing new device drivers becomes slightly simpler.
	This won't solve any problems relating to distribution of PH
copyright materials, but it would be very nice for new MMs or FSes. I
guess the real difficulty would be in formalising all the hooks
between FS and MM, so that you just treat them as design criteria.
	

