ludicrous_peridot wrote on 2026-05-31, 21:47:

Since the original question in general banter did not get any suggestions, I ended up forking JojoDiff, which I would probably have had hard time even finding in the first place - but an LLM brought it to my attention. It builds and operates in DOS now, and I am adding a human (as in edit.com/notepad wielder type of human) readable and editable format (and also for multifile patching) for the original author's algorithm.
Here it is work in progress.

i wish we werent reliant on DOS4GW.EXE. Can I replace it with DOS/32A or GCC with DJGPP? I dont like that Open Watcom license

Thas sounds like a reasonable thing... However having read a bit, I get an impression nobody seems to like that Open Watcom license. I am actually perplexed and not sure that stubbing with another extender will fix the licensing issues in this case, because:

- it's unlikely they are GPL3
- Watcom standard library remains (and also for the real mode binary)

So, since I find it quite confusing, any advice on the path forward? Seeing a DOS hobbyist project that includes GPL3-licensed code or dependencies and ships binaries would be a good start.

twiz11 wrote on 2026-05-31, 22:49:

ludicrous_peridot wrote on 2026-05-31, 21:47:

Since the original question in general banter did not get any suggestions, I ended up forking JojoDiff, which I would probably have had hard time even finding in the first place - but an LLM brought it to my attention. It builds and operates in DOS now, and I am adding a human (as in edit.com/notepad wielder type of human) readable and editable format (and also for multifile patching) for the original author's algorithm.
Here it is work in progress.

i wish we werent reliant on DOS4GW.EXE. Can I replace it with DOS/32A or GCC with DJGPP? I dont like that Open Watcom license

I think if the binary is compiled with OpenWatcom you can just use DOS32A to launch it. Everything should work unless it's something specific to DOS4GW that DOS32A might behave differently.

As for GCC/DJGPP, you'll be using CWSDPMI or HDPMI32 (from HX DOS Extender).

I switched build to use DOS32/A by default but personally build against HDPMI32I now (instructions included with source of course).
Still, this being OpenWatcom I am only prepared to offer JDIFFT.EXE produced using another toolchain/compiler as prebuilt binary and project page has been updated accordingly.