and that's the point where it hurts: that I can't exepack KERNEL.SYS and FREECOM.COM with aPack to save some Kbyte
You may be able to do this "Real Soon Now" (in the FSF's sense, which means some months ;-)
Those tiny 200 bytes provoked the current wall of arguments, for which I thank you! You put a finger in the wound. It really hurts, I know. That's why I wrote my Savonarola-style sarcasm. And yet nobody noticed that it was a sarcasm! Why? Because we care more about the letter and not the spirit of the GPL. We're developers and will never be lawyers. Se let's come down to common sense and think...
What is the goal of the GPL? Providing freedom and ensuring that nobody can deprive anybody from it. Do we provide freedom? Sure, by including source code with our work. Do we deprive anybody from it? No! Despite that we distribute packed executables, anyone can re-build them from the source code we provide to obtain a 100% functional copy of the original. (It doesn't really have to be byte-identical.) After that, he may pack it with the same packer we used, or another packer. So, we *do* ensure that all freedom is passed to the recipient of the program!
Another point. EXEPACK is a part of the MS LINK, which is a part of the compiler, therefore the GPL allows using it. Now, where's the difference between this primitive packer and aPack? There is no difference in the job they do, only in the extent of compression - 5% vs 50%. So what?
Let's stop the paranoia. We're NOT criminals! And whoever accuses us so, let him prove that... you know where!
Lucho
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