Re: [cobalt-developers] CMU on the 550

[Anders Björklund <andersb@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff Lasman wrote:
>> Anyone knows exactly *what* kinds of problems exist with CMU on the 550?
> 
> Jeff Bilicki wrote (perhaps here?) that he couldn't get it working, so
> he disabled it.

Yes, I saw that posting too:
http://list.cobalt.com/pipermail/cobalt-users/2002-November/082105.html

"Currently I wouldn't recommend it, I added a check so that
RaQ550 to RaQ550 would fail.   This was due to problems found in
testing.  Unfortunately, there no SQA resources to test CMU (yet
again).  I had tried to do as much self testing as possible."

> That's what he put into the code because (he said) he didn't have the
> time to sufficiently debug it.

On his spare time, that is. Since the funds have been cut. :-(

So far, we know of a lot of problems with Japanese-language RaQs.

>> So in effect, the CMU on the 550 is write-only (kinda useless)...
> 
> Well cmuExport is rather worthless, cmuImport seems to work fine from
> RaQ4.

Yes, moving *to* the RaQ 550 does seem to work just fine.
Backing up the 550, migrating between 550's or moving *from* the 550
is a whole other issue. It's seems to be "almost" working, though...

> I'd say ask Jeff; he wrote it, he decided it didn't work sufficiently
> well enough to release.

So I did, but haven't heard back yet...

Think he did a great personal effort of proving us all
with the CMU and shell-tools betas, not officially released.

>> This was using the CMU 2.43 beta from Jeff's personal site,
>> as Sun seems uninterested in providing a CMU for the RaQ 550 ?
> 
> Sad.  But apparrently true.

Sun does seem rather uninterested in the Cobalt RaQs, period.
Guess all their efforts are with Sun Linux and the LX50 now ?

>> PS. Anyone know the license status of this code ? (the CMU)
>>     The RPM file says "GPL", and the source just says "copyright"
>>     Assuming it's the Sun Binary Code License, or somesuch.
> 
> If the RPM file says GPL then I'd say it's GPL.  Whereas I'm not a
> lawyer, if Jeff wrote GPL when he created the RPM, then it is.

Somehow, I think RPM has a tendency to "fall back" on the GPL
if no other license is given in the spec file. Maybe he just
didn't write anything in the spec file ? Or got it wrong...

BTW; Does the GPL mean that Sun must share their Cobalt patches ?
(to the various other GPL'ed software they are shipping, that is)

The perl source files doesn't say anything about it being GPL:
    # Cobalt Networks, Inc http::/www.cobalt.com
    # Copyright 2001 Sun Microsystems, Inc.  All rights reserved.
And there is no "proper" SRPM available, or anything. As usual.


Back to tar/gzip and rsync/openssh, I guess. <sigh>
--anders