[PROPOSAL] extended payload handling

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Kevin O'Connor <kevin at koconnor.net> [040610 06:09]:
> If I understand your proposal correctly, one of the major issues will be
> ensuring that the payloads don't step on each other or linuxbios when they
> run.
 
Yes, mostly. They must not overwrite LinuxBIOS in memory. And there needs 
to be a mechanism within linuxbios that allows to execute many of them.

> Wouldn't it be simpler to just link linuxbios and all the payloads together
> at compile time?  Essentially, that is what your proposal is doing, except
> it does it at run time.

It actually would be simpler, yes. But as far as I understood the common
discussion here, people prefer having a strict border between linuxbios
and it's payloads. 
 
> So, couldn't an __init tag be created (a la linux) that marks functions to
> be run prior to the bootloader.  With this feature, modules could then be
> created entirely separate from the linuxbios core that just define a single
> __init entry point.  A simple post-build script could then collect all the
> user's modules, scan them for __init functions, create a stub function that
> executes the __init functions, and then link the whole mess into the final
> linuxbios target..
> 
> The above seems functionally equivalent to me, but conceptually simpler;
> did I miss something?

Functionally it is equivalent, yes.

   Stefan