Re: porting Grub to Xen

[Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko]

Hello

On Mon, May 18, 2009 at 8:45 PM, Ferenc Wagner <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Last week we had a very interesting chat on #grub, discussing various
> possibilities to run Grub in a Xen paravirtual domain.  You showed
> some interest in properly porting Grub to this architecture instead of
> my misguided attempts to go through grub-emu and kexec.  You asked for
> the interface docs to be able to assess the task.  Please find it under
>
> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/research/srg/netos/xen/documentation.html
>
> referenced as "Developer Manual" in HTML and PDF.  I put online the
> current MiniOS source at http://apt.niif.hu/minios.tgz,
Xen is under GPLv2. Unless otherwise stated minios is under GPLv2 too.
In quick look I haven't found a separate license for minios. grub2 is
under GPLv3+ which makes it incompatible with gplv2. So this code
can't be used by grub2. If you really need a reference implementation
I suggest taking a look at freebsd. Ensure however that it's under new
BSD license before taking any code from it. If it contains the
advertising clause (old BSD license) then it's not GPLv3+-compatible.
Normally whole BSD is under new BSD license but check it. Also when
you borrow any code put borrowed code into separate files and clearly
indicate the origin and the original license. Also it's much better in
licensing and technical point of view to do it from scratch: it
usually results in a much cleaner code and it's not encumbered by
additional clauses
> which is
> bundled with Xen, and provides a running example of the interface
> specification.  Porting could mean taking the necessary parts or this,
> and adding the Grub interface.  Please find attached my current disk
> interface, which works under grub-emu (under MiniOS).
>
> So, what do you think about this?  I'm afraid I don't have the
> necessary low-level knowledge to be of much help starting, but at
> least have a definite need, so I'll try my best.
>
> Thanks,
> Feri.
>
>
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>



-- 
Regards
Vladimir 'phcoder' Serbinenko