On Sat, Dec 7, 2013 at 1:18 PM, Jack <[email protected]> wrote: > >>> You may not consider it reliable, and Dennis may have some odd >>> problem accessing it, but that website <http://ms-dos7.hit.bg> >>> did give me, on 5-Dec-2013, a working 2-diskette copy of V7.10 >>> which I was able to "install" on my system ... >> >> Do a ping, whois, traceroute, or nslookup on it. Tell me what >> you get. > > Wish I could, but I have none of those on my system. Fact is, I
They are highly useful tools, and available online as well in addition to being local commands. What do you use as a browser, and how do you reach the Internet? > DETEST the Internet -- I remember when it was totally "free", and > absolutely NOT as "commercial" as it is now! DISGUSTING, to me, > that almost all "news" URLs now force you to receive 500K or more > of damned ADVERTISEMENTS, BEFORE you get one word of "news"! My > system is still dial-up which saves "BIG BUCKS" for retirees like > me, and I often ABANDON such miserable websites BEFORE they deign > to offer me useful items! I use the Bloody Internet mainly as a > vehicle for E-Mail. NO personal website, and I do not want one. You need to learn more about the Internet. For instance, blocking those 500K or more of ads is trivial. I don't see them, because I do. And sorry, but *something* has to pay for those "free" services that cost actual time and money to provide, and ads are what pays for them. "Free" in this context means "Someone *else* pays for it. I don't." >>> The 2-diskette installation set for V7.10 MS-DOS, available on >>> that site, does work well, and it rather STRONGLY suggests its >>> "installer" was written by Microsoft. >> >> Like I said, it's also available from the last Internet.org crawl >> if others have the same difficulty I did. > > Good to know. I can also imagine that you and I may be on two > different "legs" of the Internet. Perhaps your "leg" does not > handle websites in Bulgaria the same as mine does. My leg doesn't like it at all. I get nowhere trying to reach the underlying IP address instead of relying on DNS resolution, and the underlying IP address *should* work. >>> And re: your comment that "You can't 'freely' download, modify >>> or redistribute any DOS besides FreeDOS", I can only say again >>> that the above website most-certainly DID work for me! >> >> Freely in this context is generally taken to include "legally". >> This isn't. You may not *care*, but that doesn't change the >> legality. > > I remain UNCONVINCED that the above site, or any others with that > same release of V7.10 MS-DOS, is in fact illegal. If Microsoft has not formally released MS-DOS 7.10 as a freely available download, it's *not* legal under US law, which is what we're concerned with. Countries in the former Soviet Union have historically not cared about US law in this sort of case, so it's probably legal for the Bulgarian site to host the download under Bulgarian law. It's *not* legal to download and use it under US law There's a lot of "abandonware" out there that is no longer sold/supported but never explicitly cut loose by the vendors, and sites that specialize in it. The legal status is at best murky. Whether a vendor will take action will be governed by money. Taking action costs money. A vendor will do so if they are *aware* of the availability of the software on the Internet, and think they see lost revenue sufficient to justify taking action. (And taking action against a site in someplace like Russia or Bulgaria will be much more time consuming and expensive. You can't just send a DMCA "cease-and-desist" order, because those countries aren't subject to US laws about such things.) MS is likely not aware of the MS-DOS 7.10 distribution from the Bulgarian host, and probably won't care enough to take action if they are. It's not like they are losing sales. But "They don't care" isn't the same thing as "It's legal." Yes, it's a technical distinction, but an important one. "Legal" means "In compliance with applicable laws." Unless the vendor has formally released software they no longer sell or support as freeware, usable at your own risk, the software, while available, is not technically legal. > Jack R. Ellis ______ Dennis ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sponsored by Intel(R) XDK Develop, test and display web and hybrid apps with a single code base. Download it for free now! http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=111408631&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
