Hi Bruno, I honestly haven't looked at Terminal Matrix (yet), mostly because I was highly confused about what to expect after reading the description on your website. If it genuinly does something at least semi-useful, or semi-fun, and it's libre software, then I believe we should add it to the Games repo - the choice of libre games for DOS is really poor.
There is a FreeDOS "Games" repository already, it's in the list of FDNPKG repositories: http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/distributions/1.1/repos/listing.txt Would you mind providing a FreeDOS package for Terminus Matrix? It's as simple as creating a "games\tmatrix" directory where your game keeps all its files (tmatrix can be named differently, but it should reflect the name of the package), then create an "appinfo\tmatrix.lsm" text file with the game's information (look at other packages for inspiration about the format and content of this LSM file), then add source code of your game into "source\tmatrix\" and finally zip the whole thing as "tmatrix.zip". I'd recommend creating the package right from your Makefile, it makes things easier for future releases. Please make sure you don't rely on anything that is proprietary (graphic libraries, runtime code or so..). Details about FreeDOS package structure here: http://freedos.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Package cheers, Mateusz On 25/08/2015 15:43, Bruno Félix Rezende Ribeiro wrote: > Hello Rugxulo! > > Em Sat, 22 Aug 2015 17:15:08 -0500 > Rugxulo <rugx...@gmail.com> escreveu: > >>> I think you got it right. The best category for Terminal Matrix >>> (TM) would be, perhaps, "Gaming". I couldn't find a category for >>> games in FreeDOS software list at its website, though. >> >> AFAIK, Jim Hall is not majorly interested in games. Last I heard, he >> thought most people either knew where to find such DOS games or they >> already had them. So, while there are some few games mirrored on >> iBiblio (or even sometimes bundled with various distros), it's not >> been a big priority overall (and obviously there aren't too many being >> written from scratch or even maintained anymore). > > So, does it mean that there is no place for Terminal Matrix in > FreeDOS? DOS games usually are distributed in abandonware sites, > where virtually all games are legacy commercial proprietary software. > Personally, I think it would be nice for the FreeDOS project to > distribute free software games, after all an operating system is > incomplete without games. ;-) > > Other thing worth saying, I think, is that I haven't come across a free > software game like Terminal Matrix in all these years searching for, > in any platform. Do you know any proprietary DOS game that does a > similar job? Perhaps, Terminal Matrix is a good candidate to > be the FreeDOS forerunner game. ;-P > > >>> As far as I'm aware, FreeDOS does not distribute any screensaver >>> currently, and I can't find a category where DeciMatrix would fit >>> nicely. >> >> The only semi-official screensaver would probably be IDLEDPMS (from >> FDAPM). Unless you count the screensaver programs from Necromancer's >> DOS Navigator (NDN). > > So, does it mean that there is a place for it in FreeDOS? :-P > > >>> The link to QDot is just contextual, since both programs are written >>> in that language. It would fit in the "DEVEL" category, but it's >>> not a program per se, rather it's sort of an extension to NASM. >> >> NASM is indeed the official assembler of the project, but still not >> everything is written with it. >> >> Since your QDot is GPLv3 and uses NASM, I've gone ahead and mirrored >> it to iBiblio. Maybe someone else will find a further use for it. >> >> http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/devel/asm/nasm/contrib/qdot/ > > That's good, Thanks! How would people know about it, though? > Doesn't QDot satisfy the requirements to be listed on the main site? > > >>> Is the FreeDOS project open to this kind of submission and are >>> developers looking for new software or is it mostly static and >>> developers are unwilling to extend it beyond the already available >>> "core" packages? I'm asking this because I couldn't find any >>> documentation on that. >> >> FreeDOS is very low on both developers and volunteers. It was >> originally intended to only "officially" (e.g. Software List) provide >> common languages that everyone knew, e.g. C or C++ or BASIC, assembly, >> etc. AFAIK, Jim Hall doesn't want to clutter up the list itself with >> every language under the sun (since there are hundreds). It makes it >> somewhat hard to collaborate when you have to learn yet another >> idiosyncratic language for every single util, hence the emphasis on >> OpenWatcom (C/C++) and NASM (assembly). >> >> http://freedos.sourceforge.net/software/?cat=devel >> >> If you check, you'll see many things listed there, but they aren't all >> widely used. DJGPP is a very popular toolset, as is OpenWatcom and >> even others like FreeBASIC or FreePascal. But there's still plenty of >> assembly as well (e.g. NASM, FASM) and lots of other tools (Rexx, >> Forth). >> >> But that's not to say you can't ignore those (as many do), and >> certainly the project is willing to mirror anything interesting to >> iBiblio (as long as it's free software). > > People have different takes on what they expect from a free software > project like FreeDOS. Many people just want to run legacy software > and live in the good old days' nostalgia. On the other hand, people > like me are more interested in advancing and maintaining the free > operating system for its own sake, so it can be nourished in the free > software community and evolve independently to a point where we have > replaced all non-free components that once were necessary and have > added several more that weren't available in the DOS original days. > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > > > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-devel mailing list > Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
