Mark Pizzolato, SIMH retro computer simulator's main developer, added a restriction to the license text concerning the use of future changes made to the files sim_disk.c and scp.c. The other project files continue to be distributed under the MIT license.
The license change was a reaction to criticism of the AUTOSIZE feature added last year, which added metadata to disk images loaded into the emulator, increasing the image size by 512 bytes. Some users expressed dissatisfaction with this behavior and recommended storing metadata not in the image reflecting the disk's content but in a separate file. As convincing the author to change the default behavior proved unsuccessful, some derivative projects began altering this functionality through additional patches.
Mark Pizzolato addressed the issue radically by adding a clause to the project license that prohibits the use of any new code he adds to files sim_disk.c and scp.c after the license text change, in cases of changes to the default behavior or values related to the AUTOSIZE functionality. The code in sim_disk.c and scp.c added before the license change remains available under the MIT license.
This action was criticized by other project participants, as the change was made without considering the opinions of other developers, and now SIMH may be perceived as a non-free project, hindering its promotion and integration with other projects. Mark Pizzolato pointed out that the license changes only pertain to the files sim_disk.c and scp.c, which he personally developed. For those unhappy with the addition of data to the image during boot, he recommended connecting disk images in read-only mode or disabling the AUTOSIZE function by adding the parameter 'SET NOAUTOSIZE' to the configuration file ~/simh.ini.
Allikas: opennet.ru
