This repository contains pre-compiled binaries of legacy bitcoin-qt versions with a special "getblock" patch that allows bitcoin's blockupdate.php script to get a dump of raw block data.
The getblock patch was needed for older versions of bitcoin-qt because until bitcoin-qt 0.8.X support was missing for getting raw block data.
Unfortunately the output format and RPC API for getblock in bitcoin-qt 0.8.X is substantially different from the output format produced by the older patched bitcoin-qt, which means blockexplorer still depends on the old patched bitcoind.
The plan is to update blockexplorer code so that it can use bitcoin-qt 0.8.X instead. Then we will no longer need this repository. Until that happens, the older patched version is still a dependency.
Note that a workaround is required for the older patched bitcoind to be compatible with newer versions:
cat /var/local/lib/bitcoin-qt/DB_CONFIG
set_lk_max_locks 537000
cat /var/local/lib/bitcoin-qt-testnet/testnet3/DB_CONFIG
set_lk_max_locks 537000