From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with archive (Exim 4.43) id 1NNuyc-000885-BA for mharc-grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:12:06 -0500 Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NNuyZ-00084a-2L for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:12:03 -0500 Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NNuyU-0007yI-Bj for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:12:02 -0500 Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=33992 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NNuyU-0007yB-9k for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:11:58 -0500 Received: from xvm-190-8.ghst.net ([217.70.190.8]:38041 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 1NNuyT-0001OK-Su for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 Dec 2009 16:11:58 -0500 Received: from [192.168.10.10] (helo=thorin) by aybabtu.com with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NNuyS-0008Sf-Kb for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:11:56 +0100 Received: from rmh by thorin with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NNuyS-0003BD-2f for grub-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:11:56 +0100 Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:11:56 +0100 From: Robert Millan To: The development of GNU GRUB Message-ID: <20091224211156.GD12122@thorin> References: <20091207150831.GA8047@thorin> <4B201BC7.2050703@gmail.com> <20091209220351.GJ7093@thorin> <4B202212.2090201@gmail.com> <20091210010103.GC15546@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: my plan for Multiboot 2 X-BeenThere: grub-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: The development of GNU GRUB List-Id: The development of GNU GRUB List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:12:03 -0000 On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 12:36:24PM +0530, BVK Chaitanya wrote: > I don't have much knowledge in multiboot yet, but this case comes to my mind: > > Since GRUB2 is extensible (using modules), Modules don't really make GRUB extensible. We don't make any promises about ABI and it's very impractical to provide extensions as modules. However, since it's free software and everyone can modify it, it's easy to extend it at source level. The grub-extras project does this. Also, some basic support in the build system (grep for GRUB_CONTRIB) makes this very straightforward. > over time third party > modules would be developed and they may want to pass their own > parameters to kernels; so we should provide some scheme to > differentiate standard (i.e, multiboot) parameters vs. non-standard > (i.e, third-party) parameters. OTOH, with Multiboot spec we need to be more careful. I'm wary of it becoming "balkanized" by too many third party extensions. This doesn't mean we can't implement extensions which are not in the spec in very specific situations (e.g. kernel of OpenSolaris is not spec compliant), though. -- Robert Millan "Be the change you want to see in the world" -- Gandhi