From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1MfLuo-0005vl-K9 for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:51:58 -0400 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MfLun-0005vg-UF for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:51:57 -0400 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1MfLuj-0005rs-Az for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:51:57 -0400 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=39879 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1MfLuj-0005rj-8K for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:51:53 -0400 Received: from xvm-190-8.ghst.net ([217.70.190.8]:37631 helo=aybabtu.com) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MfLuh-0000BT-VX for grub-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:51:52 -0400 Received: from [192.168.10.10] (helo=thorin) by aybabtu.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MfLuW-0001JU-0U for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:51:40 +0200 Received: from rmh by thorin with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1MfLuV-0006kX-Eo for grub-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:51:39 +0200 Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:51:39 +0200 From: Robert Millan To: The development of GRUB 2 Message-ID: <20090823225139.GC25769@thorin> References: <20090818175751.GA8971@thorin> <20090823120116.GP4130@thorin> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: Organization: free as in freedom X-Message-Flag: Worried about Outlook viruses? Switch to Thunderbird! www.mozilla.com/thunderbird X-Debbugs-No-Ack: true User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.18 (2008-05-17) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.6 (newer, 3) Subject: Re: pc.mod -> part_msdos.mod (etc) X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GRUB 2 List-Id: The development of GRUB 2 List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:51:58 -0000 On Sun, Aug 23, 2009 at 08:42:52PM +0200, Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko wrote: > >> As was discussed in http://www.mail-archive.com/grub-devel@gnu.org/msg06210.html > >> I intend to prefix all partmap modules with "part_" and rename "pc" to > >> "part_msdos". > This partition scheme is "PC-style" ans calling it "msdos" effectively > means miscrediting IBM's work to Microsoft. I don't believe this to be > correct. Well, it's a bit more complicated. First of all, PC-style isn't appropiate. "PC" is generally assumed to be hardware and perhaps firmware, but not OS (otherwise if it doesn't run some version of DOS it's not a PC). DOS is the operating system that introduced this partition layout. I don't know which version, or whether it had this layout from the very beginning; its design patterns suggest some primitive version only had a filesystem with MBR and no partition label at all. Nowadays, DOS-derived operating systems (e.g. Windows Vista) are only being developed by Microsoft, and this has been true for a long while. I don't think it's far-fetched to consider MSDOS the canonical implementation. Besides, I think IBM can live without the agravation of having this crappy design being attributed to them. It's clearly not their fault that 30 years later we're still living by such poor standards. IOW, there's no problem with miss-attributing something bad to Microsoft, even if they didn't do it. If they did something good, we could still attribute it to them, but this never happened anyway. -- Robert Millan The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."