Re: [Freedos-kernel] Packing kernel with aPack saves 1.3 KB

[Steve G. <fr...@gr...>]

Gang,

I'm totally lost about all this GPL detail, but here's the reply from 
aPack's author ... Joergen Ibsen:

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

To: sr...@gr...
From: Joergen Ibsen <ma...@ib...>
Subject: Re[2]: aPACK registration
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
X-RCPT-TO: <sr...@gr...>
Status: U
X-UIDL: 372846190

Hi Steve!

SG> I don't know whether you would care to make a licensing exception,
SG> or whatever would be necessary to have aPack used by the FreeDOS
SG> folks, but they seem to be interested and receptive. :)

I would love to let the FreeDOS people use aPACK for their work. When I 
wrote the license for aPACK I did my best to try to allow people who wrote 
freeware/open-source software to use it freely, and only require people who 
made money on using it have to register.

However even the best intentions are often incompatible with the GPL :-) It 
seems strange to me if the intent of the GPL were to disallow executable 
compression using a non-GPL tool, since it's merely a form of distribution, 
much like putting the executable into a zip archive. But it's the feeling I 
get from reading the GPL FAQ.

I am open to any ideas on how to allow the FreeDOS project to use aPACK, 
and hope we can figure out a solution :-)

-- 
Regards, Joergen Ibsen :)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So guys, I turn it over to you to pursue.  Joergen's eMail address is shown 
above and he'd love to hear from whomever here should open a dialog to 
consider this possibility.

All the best,
_________________________________________________________________
steve.