Trying to improve x49gp

[Claudio L.]

(11-17-2021 11:47 PM)3298 Wrote:  I'm not a lawyer either, but as far as I remember one of the big changes between GPL v2 and v3 was adding many other licenses to a list of those GPL considers "compatible" (which some projects even cited as a reason to stay v2-only instead of v2-or-newer). As far as I can tell, the existence of this list gives us some wiggle room to choose a one of them for those parts that aren't directly QEMU pieces. In that light contacting the contributors who constitute "us" for clarification may or may not be needed, but doing so would definitely be the safe option.

Mmmm... I understood it in a completely different way. The way I understood it is that a license being "compatible" means that source code under that license can be included in a GPL project. GPL being the main license covering the entire project, swallowing the other license. Anyone modifying the code that's under the other license as part of the GPL project would still have to release the changes in compliance with the GPL license, even if those files were originally BSD licensed for example that doesn't require that. In other words, the GPL attaches on top of the other license and imposes its restrictions.
The other way around doesn't work: any work derived from any GPL'd source becomes GPL'd. You can't derive work from a GPL'd project and place it under a different license, even if it's compatible, the new work becomes GPL.

(11-17-2021 11:47 PM)3298 Wrote:  Oh, I know that. But I also know what people do with binary packages, and that distressingly often omits the linking to source part. Look no further than x49gp itself, particularly the list of forks on GitHub ... last time I checked (anonymously of course; my stance on their terms and conditions hasn't changed for the better since Microsoft took over), the twenty or so newest commits were from a particularly dumb user who forked your repository, then started removing all the files over many commits (one by one at first, then in batches), then added a binary package and a fresh readme, and changed both of these many times in quick succession.
Aside from the disgusting misuse of git as a version control system, this idiot didn't deign to tell others what sources the binaries were produced from. Sure, the commit history kind of retained the source files, but which revision(s?) were the binaries produced from, and were there custom patches? Nobody knows.

Hahaha! and I had to go and look for myself... I think that guy just wants to build his resume, so he forked some 400 projects, adds hundreds of bogus commits like the ones you saw, then he can put in his resume something like "more than 3500 commits contributed to over 400 open source projects".

(11-17-2021 11:47 PM)3298 Wrote:  ...
Hey, quarantining HP firmware and bootcode to hpcalc.org and pulling it in during build or installation is a pretty great idea. Eric Rechlin indeed has HP authorization to host the firmware, though I'm not sure if that covers the bootcode too. He currently doesn't offer that for download at least (apart from a copy of x49gp, but that doesn't count).

I think we can submit it to Eric's and see if he approves it. I'd say all binaries are probably OK on his website at this point, since they are long discontinued products.