[PATCH] Give more useful names to other bootable devices

[Will Woods]

Give more useful names to other bootable devices.

This patch for booty would give more useful (descriptive, anyway) names
to the other operating systems that booty finds.

The patch is untested but really obvious. I'm guessing that trademark
concerns are the only thing that kept someone from doing this sooner.

I'm not a lawyer, but I'm almost positive this is Fair Use, as we're
just using the marks to identify the product.

Microsoft's page on the matter[1] says:
"You may use the Windows trademark in a referential phrase such as
'works with Windows XP,' ..."
And Apple has very similar guidelines[2] about the use of "Mac OS".

Naturally I'll defer to Legal here, but it seems pretty obviously OK.

-w

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/trademarks/usage/windows.mspx
[2] http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html

---
 bootloaderInfo.py |    4 ++--
 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/bootloaderInfo.py b/bootloaderInfo.py
index 207242c..8aa39c4 100644
--- a/bootloaderInfo.py
+++ b/bootloaderInfo.py
@@ -189,9 +189,9 @@ class BootImages:
         for (dev, type) in devs:
             if not self.images.has_key(dev):
                 if type in dosFilesystems and doesDualBoot():
-                    self.images[dev] = ("Other", "Other", type)
+                    self.images[dev] = ("Other", "Windows", type)
                 elif type in ("hfs", "hfs+") and rhpl.getPPCMachine() == "PMac":
-                    self.images[dev] = ("Other", "Other", type)
+                    self.images[dev] = ("Other", "Mac OS X", type)
                 else:
                     self.images[dev] = (None, None, type)

[David Cantrell]

On Sep 22, 2008, at 12:44 PM, Will Woods wrote:
> Give more useful names to other bootable devices.
>
> This patch for booty would give more useful (descriptive, anyway)  
> names
> to the other operating systems that booty finds.
>
> The patch is untested but really obvious. I'm guessing that trademark
> concerns are the only thing that kept someone from doing this sooner.

Perhaps, but my personal take on it is there is the do-I-care issue  
and the technical issue.

For me, I don't care what is on a user's HFS or DOS partition.  Maybe  
it's bootable, maybe it's not.  But it's not our problem.

The technical issue is we can't really make the assumption that all  
bootable HFS partitions on ppc systems are MacOS X.  I mean, it's  
probably a safe guess, but it's not guaranteed.  The same with DOS  
partitions.  We can't assume it's Windows.  The only way to know for  
sure what's on those filesystems is to dig down in to them and see  
what will boot from them, and then that brings in a whole set of  
knowledge that isn't really part of anaconda.
> I'm not a lawyer, but I'm almost positive this is Fair Use, as we're
> just using the marks to identify the product.
>
> Microsoft's page on the matter[1] says:
> "You may use the Windows trademark in a referential phrase such as
> 'works with Windows XP,' ..."
> And Apple has very similar guidelines[2] about the use of "Mac OS".
>
> Naturally I'll defer to Legal here, but it seems pretty obviously OK.

If it's a legal issue, that makes it easy.  I think the technical  
issue is more valid.  Rather than saying 'Other', I would vote for  
saying 'Bootable HFS partition' or 'Bootable NTFS partition'.  That's  
about as much knowledge as we have.
> [1] http://www.microsoft.com/about/legal/trademarks/usage/windows.mspx
> [2] http://www.apple.com/legal/trademark/guidelinesfor3rdparties.html
>
> bootloaderInfo.py |    4 ++--
> 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/bootloaderInfo.py b/bootloaderInfo.py
> index 207242c..8aa39c4 100644
> --- a/bootloaderInfo.py
> +++ b/bootloaderInfo.py
> @@ -189,9 +189,9 @@ class BootImages:
>         for (dev, type) in devs:
>             if not self.images.has_key(dev):
>                 if type in dosFilesystems and doesDualBoot():
>                self.images[dev] = ("Other", "Other", type)
>                self.images[dev] = ("Other", "Windows", type)
>           elif type in ("hfs", "hfs+") and  
>
> rhpl.getPPCMachine() == "PMac":
>                self.images[dev] = ("Other", "Other", type)
>                self.images[dev] = ("Other", "Mac OS X", type)
>           else:
>               self.images[dev] = (None, None, type)
>
> -- 
> 1.5.5.2
>
> Anaconda-devel-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/anaconda-devel-list

[Jesse Keating]

On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 13:34 -1000, David Cantrell wrote:
> If it's a legal issue, that makes it easy.  I think the technical  
> issue is more valid.  Rather than saying 'Other', I would vote for  
> saying 'Bootable HFS partition' or 'Bootable NTFS partition'.  That's  
> about as much knowledge as we have.

I would agree here.  We don't want to be like apple and call anything
not OS X "Windows".  I hate having to boot "Windows" to get to Fedora on
my apple hardware.

[John Summerfield]

David Cantrell wrote:
> On Sep 22, 2008, at 12:44 PM, Will Woods wrote:
> > Give more useful names to other bootable devices.
> >
> > This patch for booty would give more useful (descriptive, anyway) names
> > to the other operating systems that booty finds.
> >
> > The patch is untested but really obvious. I'm guessing that trademark
> > concerns are the only thing that kept someone from doing this sooner.
>
> Perhaps, but my personal take on it is there is the do-I-care issue and 
> the technical issue.
>
> For me, I don't care what is on a user's HFS or DOS partition.  Maybe 
> it's bootable, maybe it's not.  But it's not our problem.
>
> The technical issue is we can't really make the assumption that all 
> bootable HFS partitions on ppc systems are MacOS X.  I mean, it's 
> probably a safe guess, but it's not guaranteed.  The same with DOS 
> partitions.  We can't assume it's Windows.  The only way to know for 
> sure what's on those filesystems is to dig down in to them and see what 
> will boot from them, and then that brings in a whole set of knowledge 
> that isn't really part of anaconda.
> > I'm not a lawyer, but I'm almost positive this is Fair Use, as we're
> > just using the marks to identify the product.
> >
> > Microsoft's page on the matter[1] says:
> > "You may use the Windows trademark in a referential phrase such as
> > 'works with Windows XP,' ..."
> > And Apple has very similar guidelines[2] about the use of "Mac OS".
> >
> > Naturally I'll defer to Legal here, but it seems pretty obviously OK.
>
> If it's a legal issue, that makes it easy.  I think the technical issue 
> is more valid.  Rather than saying 'Other', I would vote for saying 
> 'Bootable HFS partition' or 'Bootable NTFS partition'.  That's about as 
> much knowledge as we have.

Anaconda used to label Windows partitions "Windows." Someone suggested, 
jocularly I thought, that there might be a tm issue and next thing it 
was changed.

I would prefer labelling, correctly as far as possible. At least with 
DOS partitions, it's easy to tell whether a partition is bootable, the 
first byte is not a NUL. A more stringent test might be in order, but 
it's a good start.

If it contains a directory, \WINDOWS then it's almost certainly Windows.
Otherwise, if it contains \MSDOS.SYS or \PCDOS.SYS it's MSDOS or PCDOS 
respectively. If the filesystem is NTFS it's almost certainly Windows, 
even without \WINDOWS (which is the default name, but another can be 
chosen). I suppose one could look for the NT loader instead.

If it contains an OS X filesystem, it's almost certainly Darwin. I don't 
know that OS X can run from a DOS partion, but Darwin can.

If it's a Linux filesystem, it's likely Linux but one might like to know 
which one: at one point I had four different distros on one box.

I don't have a Solaris or *BSD* system to inspect atm.

I don't propose that all alternatives need to be recognised, but some 
should.

[Will Woods]

On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 16:57 -0700, Jesse Keating wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 13:34 -1000, David Cantrell wrote:
> > If it's a legal issue, that makes it easy.  I think the technical  
> > issue is more valid.  Rather than saying 'Other', I would vote for  
> > saying 'Bootable HFS partition' or 'Bootable NTFS partition'.  That's  
> > about as much knowledge as we have.
>
> I would agree here.  We don't want to be like apple and call anything
> not OS X "Windows".  I hate having to boot "Windows" to get to Fedora on
> my apple hardware.

That's a terrible analogy.

First off, Apple's BIOS stuff doesn't check the filesystem type, and we
do. So we're far more accurate about guessing the OS. Even without that
check, they're right for probably 90% of people who have a second OS on
their hardware. Including that check I'd wager we're right on 98% of
systems.

Second, we provide obvious UI to change the name, so the remaining 2% of
users - who are obviously running something *really* weird and can
therefore be assumed to be technically competent - can easily correct
the mistake.

It's just not the same.

-w

[Will Woods]

On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 13:34 -1000, David Cantrell wrote:
> Perhaps, but my personal take on it is there is the do-I-care issue  
> and the technical issue.
>
> For me, I don't care what is on a user's HFS or DOS partition.  Maybe  
> it's bootable, maybe it's not.  But it's not our problem.

Except when we set up bootloader config for the other OSes on the
system, as we do in anaconda:
http://wwoods.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/f10b-boot-config.png

I wonder what happens if you try to install Fedora on a system that's
already got Mac OS X and Windows dual-booting? Two "Other" entries,
identical except for the partition number?
> The technical issue is we can't really make the assumption that all  
> bootable HFS partitions on ppc systems are MacOS X.

What? Why not? Unless I've seriously misunderstood this part of booty,
that field is just a human-readable string that identifies the system
type.

Change it to "Mac OS" and we'll be right easily 95% of the time, and the
rest will be owned by hackers who are obviously competent enough to know
what HFS-based, non-Mac OS system they're dealing with.
> I mean, it's  
> probably a safe guess, but it's not guaranteed.  The same with DOS  
> partitions.  We can't assume it's Windows.  The only way to know for  
> sure what's on those filesystems is to dig down in to them and see  
> what will boot from them, and then that brings in a whole set of  
> knowledge that isn't really part of anaconda.

...which is why this is a patch to booty, not anaconda.

If you want me to extend the patch to actually try to identify the OS
*for sure*, with version numbers and everything, that's fine. But that
seems like an awful lot of additional complexity to handle HFS-based
systems that *aren't* OS X or NTFS/FAT-based systems that *aren't*
Windows - especially when, once again, if we guess *wrong*, it's just an
incorrect label that the the user can correct.

I really think this is one of those lucky situations where we can guess
right 95% of the time, and when we guess wrong, the failure is harmless
and trivial to correct. Refusing to guess because of that 5% chance of
failure seems like a cop-out.

-w

[David Cantrell]

On Sep 23, 2008, at 10:17 AM, Will Woods wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-09-22 at 13:34 -1000, David Cantrell wrote:
> > Perhaps, but my personal take on it is there is the do-I-care issue
> > and the technical issue.
> >
> > For me, I don't care what is on a user's HFS or DOS partition.  Maybe
> > it's bootable, maybe it's not.  But it's not our problem.
>
> Except when we set up bootloader config for the other OSes on the
> system, as we do in anaconda:
> http://wwoods.fedorapeople.org/screenshots/f10b-boot-config.png
>
> I wonder what happens if you try to install Fedora on a system that's
> already got Mac OS X and Windows dual-booting? Two "Other" entries,
> identical except for the partition number?

Well, that's true.  I guess I mostly hate it how Linux is expected to  
be friendly to neighboring operating systems while Windows and OS X  
get to stomp all over the system.  Why can't we stomp all over the  
system?
> > The technical issue is we can't really make the assumption that all
> > bootable HFS partitions on ppc systems are MacOS X.
>
> What? Why not? Unless I've seriously misunderstood this part of booty,
> that field is just a human-readable string that identifies the system
> type.
>
> Change it to "Mac OS" and we'll be right easily 95% of the time, and  
> the
> rest will be owned by hackers who are obviously competent enough to  
> know
> what HFS-based, non-Mac OS system they're dealing with.

It is just a human-readable string that identifies what's going to  
boot off that drive, but I was trying to say that you can't assume  
what's on it based just on the filesystem type.  To really know, you  
have to examine the contents of the filesystem.

But yes, you're right, we'd be correct for most cases by just making  
the assumption.
> > I mean, it's
> > probably a safe guess, but it's not guaranteed.  The same with DOS
> > partitions.  We can't assume it's Windows.  The only way to know for
> > sure what's on those filesystems is to dig down in to them and see
> > what will boot from them, and then that brings in a whole set of
> > knowledge that isn't really part of anaconda.
>
> ..which is why this is a patch to booty, not anaconda.

Missed that, sorry.
> If you want me to extend the patch to actually try to identify the OS
> *for sure*, with version numbers and everything, that's fine. But that
> seems like an awful lot of additional complexity to handle HFS-based
> systems that *aren't* OS X or NTFS/FAT-based systems that *aren't*
> Windows - especially when, once again, if we guess *wrong*, it's  
> just an
> incorrect label that the the user can correct.

That would be a waste of time.
> I really think this is one of those lucky situations where we can  
> guess
> right 95% of the time, and when we guess wrong, the failure is  
> harmless
> and trivial to correct. Refusing to guess because of that 5% chance of
> failure seems like a cop-out.

Forget my original analysis.  That's me trying to aim for the perfect  
coding solution or whatever for utopia land.  I guess the assumption  
for the labels is probably fine for us.