Re: multiboot2: using tags in the multiboot header

[Yoshinori K. Okuji]

On Friday 08 December 2006 00:07, Hollis Blanchard wrote:
> On Tue, 2006-12-05 at 21:23 +0100, Yoshinori K. Okuji wrote:
> > Is it a good spec which forces one to use sample code to be error-free?
>
> Please be serious.

I am perfectly serious here, although I like kidding.

> I'm really not sure why you have such strong objections to this. We're
> talking about a change that is MINOR in terms of code, but will make the
> interface cleaner and more convenient for everybody. Please take a step
> back and consider.

I have considered a lot. Still, considering. I am open to any new idea, but I 
haven't found your opinion convincing yet. I appreciate very much that you 
attempted to challenge this issue, though.

The reason why I object to your idea is that this is about a specification. It 
is a specification which will be used with no fundamental change for many 
years. Look at Multiboot Specification version 0.x. It has been used for 10 
years now without losing any backward compatibility. If we make a mistake, it 
would be a lot of burden for the users. Even if it is small for a given 
developer, the sum of efforts made by all developers is huge. Therefore, I 
need a good reason for every piece of it.

I said "if we make a mistake". This "we" includes myself. So I have spent some 
weeks only on this part before writing up the draft. Basically, you should 
assume that I have one or more reasons behind every part of the draft. So an 
attempt to change a part of it needs to beat reasons that I had in mind.

Okuji