I don't know that there's anyone better than you to email Jim Leonard. He won't know me in any special way, but you know the software so you can talk about it and start that conversation.
Feel free to encourage him to join the freedos-devel email list to discuss relicensing LZ4_8088 (as GNU GPL or GNU LGPL) so it can be used with more FreeDOS programs. On Tue, Jun 30, 2026 at 7:32 PM Crefelean Nicolae wrote: > > My message was clear as mud without the essential detail. What I had > in mind was the compression of the installation files on the floppy > edition, so it doesn't take hours to install it on pre-386 PCs, but > rather minutes. > > About contacting Jim Leonard, I was hoping that someone would do that > in official capacity, instead of some random dude online (me). He > would probably respond positively, so it's worth trying to sort out > a GPL-compatible license. [..] > On Tuesday, June 30, 2026 at 11:55:19 PM GMT+2, Jim Hall wrote: > > (reformatted to make this easier to read) > > I agree with ECM; as written, this "Demoscene License" is not really > an open source license. But even if it were a recognized open source > license, the extra terms in the "Demoscene License" make it > incompatible with the GNU GPL so it cannot be used with the FreeDOS > Kernel anyway. > On Tue, Jun 30, 2026 at 2:27 PM E. C. Masloch wrote: > > > > I disagree, it uses a bespoke license that I think is incompatible > > with the GPL. The license text in full reads: > > [..] > > > > I think this is nonfree because it fails the desert island and dissident > > tests known from the DFSG, and I think it is also incompatible with > > the GPL. The "greet" part could be argued to be fulfilled by retaining > > attribution in derivatives, hence compatible with FLOSS. But the last > > sentence doesn't seem compatible to anything. > > On at 2026-06-30 12:06:43 +0000, Crefelean Nicolae wrote: > > >Hi, > > >About the floppy edition: please consider creating a special set for > > >pre-386 PCs by using LZ4_8088. > > > > > >Link: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/lz4_8088 > > > Important Q&A here: > > > > > >Q: Is this code faster than the LZ4 C source code? > > >A: For 8088-80286 CPUs, yes. For 386+, no, because the 386 has > > >32-bit registers, additional segment registers, and additional > > >instructions. Compiling the LZ4 C code with a suitable 32-bit compiler > > >will produce code that definitely outperforms this 8088 assembly code. > > > > > >On the licensing side, it's basically FOSS, but you can read that bit > > >on the URL I mentioned. > _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
