On Sun, Jul 17, 2022 at 6:57 AM C. Masloch <pus...@ulukai.org> wrote: [..] >> "Let this paragraph represent a right to use, distribute, modify, enhance, >> and otherwise >> make available in a nonexclusive manner CP/M and its derivatives. This right >> comes from >> the company, DRDOS, Inc.'s purchase of Digital Research, the company and all >> assets, >> dating back to the mid-1990's. DRDOS, Inc. and I, Bryan Sparks, President of >> DRDOS, >> Inc. as its representative, is the owner of CP/M and the successor in >> interest of >> Digital Research assets." > >On the assumption that DR-DOS is included among the CP/M derivatives, >which would agree with the fact that DRDOS, Inc. did sell DR-DOS 7.xx >(and the shortlived DR-DOS 8.xx) and so had the rights to those, this >means that EDR-DOS is now free!
I think it's great that DRDOS updated their statement on CP/M. I would have preferred he used a recognized open source license like MIT or GNU GPL or another license, rather than make his own statement here, but this is definitely a good step forward. Be careful not to carry it too far, though. Bryan's statement is only about CP/M. While he says "and its derivatives," my interpretation is this statement applies only to the CP/M source code, and derivatives from the CP/M source code as it exists now. I wouldn't infer that this statement extends to DR-DOS or EDR-DOS. >As for this being "not a proper FLOSS license", I think it is clear >enough that it allows usage, distribution, and modification, which is >all that is needed for free software. It is true that this is what >people call a "crayon license", but a lot of free-ish DOS software does >have such. I consider this free software. True, a lot of "DOS freeware" does have a statement like this. Note that the GNU GPL 1.0 was published in 1989. (The Open Source Initiative was started in 1998.) But people have been making "DOS freeware" since 1981, seven years before the GNU GPL. So there literally wasn't an "open source" or "Free software" license to use back then. But that's not the case today. There are a lot of good, established, and recognized open source licenses, including BSD, GNU GPL, MIT, Apache 2.0, and others. I think it would have been better for DRDOS to release CP/M under a recognized license (MIT seems to match their intent). As I've learned over time, making up your own license statement like this can make things unclear later on. I made that mistake once and I've regretted it. Best to use a license that's already recognized. But I'm glad that DRDOS made this step; any step forward is good. Questions arise when you consider if you can re-use the CP/M source code in another project that uses a recognized open source license - or if you want to re-use code from another project (under an open source license) to improve CP/M. Of course, these questions about code sharing are probably moot anyway, because I'm sure the CP/M source code is entirely assembly, and you don't just simply "copy/paste" assembly code like this from one project into another project. Jim _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
