Discussion:
Bug#808463: non-free code in boot.c
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Marco d'Itri
2015-12-20 11:40:02 UTC
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Package: ntfs-3g
Version: 0.0.0+20070920-1
Severity: serious
That reminds me... I wonder if anyone has looked into the legal status of
boot_array from ntfs-3g?
https://sources.debian.net/src/ntfs-3g/1:2015.3.14AR.1-1/ntfsprogs/boot.c/
There is not much to look at: while it would be hard to argue that this
Microsoft-originated software cannot be redistributed for this purpose,
I think that it is quite obvious that it is missing the corresponding
source code and that until proven otherwise it must be assumed to not
allow derivate works.
So it is clearly not DFSG free and should eventually be removed.

Unless I am missing something about the NTFS on-disk structure, then the
first 512 bytes (the boot record proper) can be easily replaced by the
code from dosfstools and the rest (the first part of NTLDR) can be
omitted since it is only useful if you need to boot a Windows OS from
the disk, which would need to be installed from other sources anyway
(Windows PE has a program to install NTLDR, in needed).
--
ciao,
Marco
Debian Bug Tracking System
2017-01-27 00:10:02 UTC
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Debian Bug Tracking System
2017-02-25 16:30:02 UTC
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Debian Bug Tracking System
2017-02-26 21:20:02 UTC
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Your message dated Sun, 26 Feb 2017 21:12:53 +0000
with message-id <E1ci67h-0003Jq-***@fasolo.debian.org>
and subject line Bug#808463: fixed in ntfs-3g 1:2016.2.22AR.1+dfsg-1
has caused the Debian Bug report #808463,
regarding ntfs-3g: non-free code in boot.c
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

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808463: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=808463
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