Hi, > On Dec 3, 2024, at 11:45 AM, E. C. Masloch via Freedos-devel > <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > On at 2024-11-29 18:55 -0800, Michael Brutman via Freedos-devel wrote: >> I don't understand what the problem with UPX compressed executables is. > > The exception for the "linking" done with the stub is fine. What isn't fine > is that UPX-NRV isn't free and open source, not in a plain "GNU GPL v2+" > sense nor in a "GNU GPL v2+ with the stub linking exception" sense. > > I don't understand how everyone keeps missing the point when I specifically > wrote "About my concern, the *compression* part of UPX," in my mail to the > list on 2024-11-26. > > I was able to build UPX-UCL on our server with the commands: > > tar -xf upx-4.2.4-src.tar.xz > cd upx-4.2.4-src/ > mkdir -p build/release > cd build/release/ > . ~/local/djgpp/setenv > CC=~/local/djgpp/i586-pc-msdosdjgpp/bin/gcc > CXX=~/local/djgpp/i586-pc-msdosdjgpp/bin/g++ cmake -S ../.. > make > > However, according to the directory names it appears our install of DJGPP > produces Pentium/586 compatible binaries, that may or may not run on a 386 or > 486. It's too long ago that I installed DJGPP here for me to remember. Maybe > I'll find some time to try to recreate it, see whether I can get it to > install the "i386-pc-msdosdjgpp" toolchain. > > I don't think building UPX counts as modification, but even if it did it > would be fine to just distribute the resulting (modified) UPX-UCL under the > plain GNU GPL v2+ as it really is free software (and open source). According > to the views expressed in the stub linking exception that would only allow to > compress files compatible with the GPL but that's not much of a loss to me. > > Regards, > ecm
Based on my evaluation and conclusions of the License, and ECM’s comments on that post, there is really only one minor concern. There are no programs provided with FreeDOS which are compressed with UPX that are not open source. That means we could provide the version of UPX which uses UCL on our release media. There is only one concern that applies to compressing programs that are not open source. Is the stub that gets inserted into binaries in both normal and 8086 compression mode byte identical to the NRV version of UPX. I suspect that since the compression performed by NRV is supposed to be compatible with that of UCL it is the same stub. However, this would need checked. If the stub is the same regardless of either NRV or UCL being used, then there is there would be no issue with using either version to compress a program that is not open source. If the end users of our OS were using UPX to compress software that is not open source, they would not need to be concerned of accidentally violating the UPX License agreement. About a week ago, Paul Dufresne was kind enough to send me his build of a UPX/UCL for DOS. If anyone wants to test it or compare stubs, I have put it up on my server. https://fd.lod.bz/redist/utils/upx-ucl/ <https://fd.lod.bz/redist/utils/upx-ucl/> :-) Jerome
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