Re: [RFC] multiboot2 loader

["Yoshinori K. Okuji" <okuji@enbug.org>]

On Tuesday 28 November 2006 11:59, Jeroen Dekkers wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 28, 2006 at 08:08:46AM +0100, Yoshinori K. Okuji wrote:
> > On Sunday 26 November 2006 11:18, Tomáš Ebenlendr wrote:
> > > What about having
> > > "Multiboot's" header as a part of "Multiboot project".
> >
> > Multiboot Specification is not a part of GRUB in any sense. It is
> > discussed in this list, only because that is the most realistic at the
> > moment, as all Multiboot developers are GRUB developers, too, AFAIK.
>
> Not part of GRUB in any sense?

No. It is explicitly written that this specification is to define a neutral 
protocol between a boot loader and an operating system.

> It was developed by GRUB developers, 
> has always been living in the GRUB repository, the official GRUB
> tarball includes it and AFAIK GRUB is the only bootloader to implement
> it.

I know at least one more project which implements Multiboot: Etherboot. The 
support is partial, but it still supports Multiboot.

I talked about excluding the Multiboot Specification from GRUB with RMS a long 
time ago, because it was not really a part of GRUB, and it looked like a part 
of it, although it should be regarded as a generic specification, only 
because it was bundled with GRUB. And, he said that it was more convenient 
for people who would like to utilize GRUB to include the spec, and the spec 
was small enough to distribute with GRUB. His argument sounded good, so I 
decided to keep it.

But now it might be better to change my mind, since even _you_ misunderstand 
it. If you don't get it, how many people would understand?

> Saying that multiboot isn't part of GRUB doesn't really make any 
> sense to me. It could as well have been named "GRUB boot protocol" and
> nobody would consider that strange.

Don't generalize your idea without asking. The spec is not limited to GRUB, 
and GRUB supports more protocols.

Okuji