[ipxe-devel] Remove gpxe or replace with ipxe?

[Gene Cumm]

On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 6:18 PM, Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 10:00 AM, Michael Brown <mbrown at fensystems.co.uk> wrote:
>> On 09/10/13 10:45, Robin Smidsrød wrote:
>>>
>>> On 09.10.2013 02:56, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The gPXE in the Syslinux tree is ridiculously old.  We could either
>>>> replace it with iPXE or just drop it, giving people a recipe for how to
>>>> integrate with iPXE themselves.
>>>>
>>>> What do people think?
>>>
>>>
>>> I'm actually more of a fan of adding docs which explain how to integrate
>>> themselves, to avoid the ipxe checkout inside syslinux getting too stale.
>>>
>>> Alternatively use git subtree/modules support to pull in latest ipxe
>>> more easily using a makefile target to upgrade ipxe to latest version.
>>
>>
>> A git submodule sounds like a good idea to me.  Let me know if there are
>> changes required to the iPXE tree to make this kind of integration smoother.
>>
>> As someone already mentioned, you now need undionly.kkkpxe when building
>> ipxelinux.0, for reasons documented at
>>
>>   http://git.ipxe.org/ipxe.git/commitdiff/9a93db3
>
> I'm no legal expert but I'd think that including even a binary blob of
> undionly.* would carry an obligation to include the iPXE source code
> due to the license requirement of including the source or ensuring its
> availability upon request and including the source is the easiest way
> to ensure compliance.
>
> I'd also understand the desire to include the binary blob in the git
> repo and remove it from most/all Makefile cleaning rules.
>
> I believe the primary goal of gpxelinux.0 and ipxelinux.0 was to
> implement HTTP capabilities now found in lpxelinux.0.  However,
> lpxelinux.0 certainly hasn't seen enough exposure to make the decision
> clear.  I'd probably lean towards complete removal but not by much.

Yet another thought.  What about removal from the git repo, possibly a
gitignore entry, then a conditional for building
gpxelinux.0/ipxelinux.0 based either on the existence of the gPXE/iPXE
Makefile or a variable in mk/local.mk (with a hint in mk/devel.mk)?

-- 
-Gene