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To: "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com>
Cc: "Brian Gerst" <bgerst@didntduck.org>,
       "Arjan van de Ven" <arjan@infradead.org>, "M." <vo.sinh@gmail.com>,
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       "Linux kernel" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario
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From: ebiederm@xmission.com (Eric W. Biederman)
Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2005 10:20:19 -0700
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.61.0512141200520.13496@chaos.analogic.com> (linux-os@analogic.com's
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"linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> writes:

> On Wed, 14 Dec 2005, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
>
>> "linux-os \(Dick Johnson\)" <linux-os@analogic.com> writes:
>>
>>> When the linux-BIOS group started, few knew where to start. Then,
>>> mysteriously, there was a complete directory tree of a well-known
>>> BIOS that appeared on the web. That was a start.
>>
>> Nope it wasn't.  None of the developers even read the code.
>> We needed to keep our hands clean.
>>
>> Eric
>>
>
> Standard disclaimer #123

And it is true.

It's not like a mess of 20 year old spaghetti assembly is a useful
starting point for anything.

I sat down and I read the relevant standards documents and what
chipset documentation there was and I manged to write code.

It's not like there is anything fundamentally hard about what bootstrap
firmware does.

Not to be insulting but disbelief here sounds a lot like SCO's assertion
that Linus couldn't written linux.

Eric