Re: KVM call agenda for 2013-05-28

[Laszlo Ersek <lersek@redhat.com>]

On 05/31/13 15:04, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> Laszlo Ersek <lersek@redhat.com> writes:
> 
>> On 05/31/13 09:09, Jordan Justen wrote:
>>
>> Due to licensing differences I can't just port code from SeaBIOS to
>> OVMF
> 
> <soapbox>

:)

> Fork OVMF, drop the fat module, and just add GPL code.  It's an easily
> solvable problem.

It's not optimal for the "upstream first" principle; we'd have to
backport upstream edk2 patches forever (there's a whole lot of edk2
modules outside of direct OvmfPkg that get built into OVMF.fd -- OvmfPkg
"only" customizes / cherry-picks the full edk2 tree for virtual
machines), or to periodically rebase an ever-increasing set of patches.

Independently, we need *some* FAT driver (otherwise you can't even boot
most installer media), which is where the already discussed worries lie.
Whatever solves this aspect is independent of forking all of edk2.

> Rewriting BSD implementations of everything is silly.  Every other
> vendor that uses TianoCore has a proprietary fork.

Correct, but they (presumably) keep rebasing their ever accumulating
stuff at least on the periodically refreshed "stable edk2 subset"
(UDK2010, which BTW doesn't include OvmfPkg). This must be horrible for
them, but in exchange they get to remain proprietary (which may benefit
them commercially).

> Maintaining a GPL
> fork seems just as reasonable.

Perhaps; diverging from "upstream first" would hurt for certain.

> </soapbox>

Thanks for the suggestion :)
Laszlo