On Tue, May 27, 2025 at 11:19 AM Bitácora de Javier Gutiérrez Chamorro (Guti) via Freedos-devel <freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net> wrote: > > On the user perspective I am more on the EDR-DOS side, and since > latests efforts on it, maybe a kernel change will make sense. > https://github.com/SvarDOS/edrdos >
Not meaning any disrespect to the EDR-DOS folks, but EDR-DOS exists under the assumption that no one will sue them. Yes, I know that it's 2025, and it's unlikely any company is going to sue over DOS .. but EDR-DOS has made this assumption from the beginning. I understand copyright laws are a bit different in Germany, so perhaps the protections are different there than in the US. Maybe I'm being too pedantic here, but let's also remember the "SCO v Linux" lawsuit .. and SCO was formerly Caldera. From my memory, EDR-DOS is derived from Caldera's OpenDOS source code. The problem with that is OpenDOS was only released under a "look but do not touch" license. As a workaround, EDR-DOS added a copy of an email (I think from Bryan Sparks) that said it was okay to use code derived from CP/M. And from that, the EDR-DOS developers claimed that gave them a loophole to keep working on EDR-DOS without worry, because OpenDOS comes from the original DR-DOS, and DR-DOS derives from CP/M. But since CP/M was released separately (and much earlier than DOS) I don't think "okay to use code from CP/M" means the same thing "okay to use code from OpenDOS." I suspect if this ever became a legal issue, a court would probably not agree with their assumption, either. And there's also the problem that the EDR-DOS code (what you linked to on GitHub) still has comment blocks like this in it, clearly stating the source code "contains confidential, proprietary and trade secret information of Caldera" and that "any use or exploitation of this work without authorization could subject the perpetrator to criminal and civil liability": ;-----------------------------------------------------------------------; ; Copyright Work of Caldera, Inc. All Rights Reserved. ; ; THIS WORK IS A COPYRIGHT WORK AND CONTAINS CONFIDENTIAL, ; PROPRIETARY AND TRADE SECRET INFORMATION OF CALDERA, INC. ; ACCESS TO THIS WORK IS RESTRICTED TO (I) CALDERA, INC. EMPLOYEES ; WHO HAVE A NEED TO KNOW TO PERFORM TASKS WITHIN THE SCOPE OF ; THEIR ASSIGNMENTS AND (II) ENTITIES OTHER THAN CALDERA, INC. WHO ; HAVE ACCEPTED THE CALDERA OPENDOS SOURCE LICENSE OR OTHER CALDERA LICENSE ; AGREEMENTS. EXCEPT UNDER THE EXPRESS TERMS OF THE CALDERA LICENSE ; AGREEMENT NO PART OF THIS WORK MAY BE USED, PRACTICED, PERFORMED, ; COPIED, DISTRIBUTED, REVISED, MODIFIED, TRANSLATED, ABRIDGED, ; CONDENSED, EXPANDED, COLLECTED, COMPILED, LINKED, RECAST, ; TRANSFORMED OR ADAPTED WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF ; CALDERA, INC. ANY USE OR EXPLOITATION OF THIS WORK WITHOUT ; AUTHORIZATION COULD SUBJECT THE PERPETRATOR TO CRIMINAL AND ; CIVIL LIABILITY. ;-----------------------------------------------------------------------; So no, we aren't going to use EDR-DOS. _______________________________________________ Freedos-devel mailing list Freedos-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-devel
