Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
I'm not sure if this is a bug, misfeature, lack of testing (re: FreeDOS specifically vs. arcane dark corners of MS-DOS), or user error. You don't need to be sure, because I am sure enough what it is. And what it is, is completely broken file system semantics. Nothing to do with arcane dark corners of MS-DOS. To the contrary, /not implementing/ proper file system semantics would have been entirely nonsensical if not for compatibility with MS-DOS (without its SHARE). So FreeDOS reproduced this unfortunate architecture (ie file locking implemented in a loadable external module that interfaces with the kernel). The problem is that even with FreeDOS's SHARE loaded, file system corruption occurs (reproducibly), and in cases that do not fail on MS-DOS with MS-DOS's SHARE loaded. As good as FreeDOS is, obviously we haven't ever had a big company kicking the tires. So some minor flaws may persist, but overall it seems to works very very well. I'd like to hear what Jeremy or Japheth have to say, esp. as I don't recall either of them weighing in on this. But others (hi, Tom) seem more pessimistic about it ever being fixed. As much as I like FreeDOS, it does seem unlikely that more will get done unless we get more volunteers. I'm not too skeptical, but I guess it's more realistic (defeatist?) to just accept that FreeDOS will always have a few bugs (like any software). We can't have everything, I guess. If there are enough active kernel developers around, eventually one of them should ask me for the small test case program that I created, or other technical information required to fix this bug; unless they figured it out all on their own already of course. (Naturally such technical communication might be more appropriate somewhere else instead of Freedos-user.) But you're right, maybe there aren't. But, to be fair, this is not something that most people need, and only Marcos seems to have run into this issue. I guess most of us are more tame in our usage. At least the code posted on BTTR seems to be user error that nobody in their right mind would willingly write: fopen(test1,wb) twice in near succession. Nope, you're wrong. Besides, that is a typical case that the type of fix I'd propose would correctly[*] handle, but the addressed underlying design flaw can cause other failures as well (such as when deleting an opened file; according to RBIL's Int21.41 description SHARE should insure that no file system corruption occurs then). Additionally, the two opens need not necessarily come from the same program. After all, there is resident software (besides networking servers) which does (write-)access files. [*] Correct here refers to not causing any file system corruption; in this example, data written to that file later would overwrite data written to the same file earlier (seeing as no file region locks were put in place and the file access modes allowed writes from several handles). Regards, Chris -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
Hi, On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:23 AM, C. Masloch c...@bttr-software.de wrote: The problem is that even with FreeDOS's SHARE loaded, file system corruption occurs (reproducibly), and in cases that do not fail on MS-DOS with MS-DOS's SHARE loaded. In very rare cases only, though. If there are enough active kernel developers around, eventually one of them should ask me for the small test case program that I created, or other technical information required to fix this bug; Besides, that is a typical case that the type of fix I'd propose would correctly[*] handle, but the addressed underlying design flaw can cause other failures as well (such as when deleting an opened file; according to RBIL's Int21.41 description SHARE should insure that no file system corruption occurs then). Admittedly nobody wants corruption, but I don't think most people rely on deleting open files (except POSIX, so it's probably only a problem when porting GNU stuff to DJGPP). Additionally, the two opens need not necessarily come from the same program. After all, there is resident software (besides networking servers) which does (write-)access files. Yes, but the point is that practically nobody (or not enough) has encountered this bug frequently enough to care to even whine, much less fix it themselves, so far. Obviously I'm in favor of fixing it (esp. in lieu of just using Linux), but I'm not a kernel dev. In other words, the implied consensus seems to be that it's low priority (though I suspect others are just busy with other things). So if they aren't overly concerned, I guess I shouldn't be either. -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
In very rare cases only, though. Irrelevant. Admittedly nobody wants corruption, but I don't think most people rely on deleting open files (except POSIX, so it's probably only a problem when porting GNU stuff to DJGPP). Inaccurate. RBIL's notes seldom refer to programs that target POSIX. practically nobody (or not enough) has encountered this bug Over-abundant usage of quotation marks. frequently enough to care to even whine, much less fix it themselves, so far. Obviously I'm in favor of fixing it (esp. in lieu of just using Linux), but I'm not a kernel dev. Yeah, right now am uninterested in putting effort into GPLed C code. regards C -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
So if they aren't overly concerned, I guess I shouldn't be either. FWIW, I use MS-DOS on a daily basis instead of FD for reasons like this. MS-DOS is, by far, the most stable of the DOS's, and is still the minimum standard to which others must compare. I would classify possible file corruption as a major problem, not a side issue. I do tests with FD just to test basic compatibility, but don't really trust it 100%. The FD utilities, as a rule, are more useful to me than the kernel. Some of the FD utilities are just as good or even better better than their MS counterparts, while others are not. -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
FWIW, I use MS-DOS on a daily basis instead of FD for reasons like this. MS-DOS is, by far, the most stable of the DOS's, and is still the minimum standard to which others must compare. I would classify possible file corruption as a major problem, not a side issue. You do always load its SHARE though, right? Regards, Chris -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
You do always load its SHARE though, right? No, not by default. According to the official documentation (e.g., the MS-DOS on-line HELP utility), you only need SHARE in a network or multi-tasking environment, which doesn't apply to my current situation. -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
No, not by default. According to the official documentation (e.g., the MS-DOS on-line HELP utility), you only need SHARE in a network or multi-tasking environment, which doesn't apply to my current situation. Then the particular problem in question is generally not a reason to prefer MS-DOS, because whenever you do not load their respective SHARE extensions then both the MS-DOS and the FreeDOS kernel are /designed/ to allow possible file corruption in this and more cases (which by the way I would agree to classify as a major problem, not a side issue). Or in other words, the official documentation is bad. Unsurprisingly so. Regards, Chris -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
Hi, On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 11:11 AM, C. Masloch c...@bttr-software.de wrote: In very rare cases only, though. Irrelevant. Maybe to you and me, but most developers seem to weigh the issue with how much time and effort vs. how important it is. To them, it makes perfect sense to ignore things that don't bother them personally or that most people won't encounter. While that's not a great attitude for a perfectionist, it's probably fine for people with lots of other (boring) things to do. Admittedly nobody wants corruption, but I don't think most people rely on deleting open files (except POSIX, so it's probably only a problem when porting GNU stuff to DJGPP). Inaccurate. RBIL's notes seldom refer to programs that target POSIX. My point is that I'm not aware of any experienced DOS developer trying to delete an open file. It's kinda obviously a bad idea. So I don't think it's a widespread problem. The only example I could think of would be hidden-behind-the-scenes assumptions when porting from POSIX (which has accidentally bit a few ports before). N.B. I personally consider it a bad idea to use such (unnecessary?) POSIX assumptions, esp. when GNU code is used in other environments, but some developers feel otherwise. practically nobody (or not enough) has encountered this bug Over-abundant usage of quotation marks. Can you think of (or preferably cite) anybody having run into this before? For FreeDOS? In recent years? In any big projects? I can't. Hence nobody. But since my experience is not all-exhaustive, I tried to make it obvious that it could have happened. But it's still somewhat unlikely (from my admittedly limited perspective). Otherwise it would've been fixed (or at least whined about ad nauseum). frequently enough to care to even whine, much less fix it themselves, so far. Obviously I'm in favor of fixing it (esp. in lieu of just using Linux), but I'm not a kernel dev. Yeah, right now am uninterested in putting effort into GPLed C code. Well, the whole point of FreeDOS existing at all is that MS dropped the ball, and they wanted a free alternative that they could update and share freely. While you and I may prefer BSD-ish licenses for various reasons (esp. since if a developer hates the GPL, they won't contribute at all, which seemingly defeats the point), the majority of enthusiasts by far prefer and use GPLv2, esp. here in FreeDOS (hi, Jim!). GPL isn't bad, per se, just annoying, too long, and I'm tired of reading endless arguments about its finer points (just code, damn it, screw the license, who cares? just make it public, free for all, it's not munitions, for freak's sake, lighten up, blah). -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
Hi, On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Bret Johnson bretj...@juno.com wrote: So if they aren't overly concerned, I guess I shouldn't be either. FWIW, I use MS-DOS on a daily basis instead of FD for reasons like this. MS-DOS is, by far, the most stable of the DOS's, and is still the minimum standard to which others must compare. I disagree. While I've used MS-DOS in the past (and it's by far the most popular DOS), it's not the best overall except in rare cases. Same with other DOSes. We could probably have interesting discussions about the pros and cons (lacks, bugs, improvements) of MS vs. DR vs. FD, etc., but for now I'll avoid that. (Where is Matthias Paul when you need him? Heh.) While lots more software was tested with MS in the past, *to me personally*, there are few reasons to want MS-DOS specifically, if at all, so I don't miss it. Since FreeDOS is open (and MS-DOS is harder to buy these days), I think a better goal would be using and improving that. (And DOSBox gets more commercial use than any, e.g. lots of old Gog.com games.) However, for a developer or tester, dual booting (MetaKern?) is probably the ultimate solution for everything. Then again, as far as that goes, MS is far inferior to DR, which is far inferior to FD due to partition installation handling (which was one of the reasons I ended up having to use DR on my old P166 and also why I didn't bother re-installing that but instead prefer FD on this Core i5). I would classify possible file corruption as a major problem, not a side issue. Sure, if it was 50%, but we're talking like %0.02 (or maybe 5%, I don't honestly know, but it can't be that high ... feel free to prove otherwise though). In all seriousness, real mode and FAT aren't meant for high security. Bad things are always possible (even in Linux or Windows, you can still hang or crash the machine by accident). Things could always be better, but if you're that serious, start writing a pmode ext2 Linux fs driver for FD. :-)) I do tests with FD just to test basic compatibility, but don't really trust it 100%. I don't trust anything 100%, mainly because no software is totally trustworthy. There are a lot of DOSes (and compatible environments) for a lot of reasons, and similar to hundreds of Linux distros, we're not likely to convince everyone to *exclusively* run native, under VBox, VMware, Win9x, etc. any time soon. So there will always be environmental issues in software beyond just the kernel proper. I get it, MS' kernel is pretty good, but it's far from perfect, and it's far from ideal in getting a copy (most people just use old ones from years past). FD isn't perfect but is very very very good, thanks to the hard work of a lot of people (hi, Eric!). The FD utilities, as a rule, are more useful to me than the kernel. Some of the FD utilities are just as good or even better better than their MS counterparts, while others are not. All software has bugs, just some are more obvious and painful than others. Seriously, I know it's heavy cliche and exhausting, but if you have any complaints, start coding, patches accepted! That's the only way to make progress. (I'm honestly not against binary patching either.) -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
Hi, On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 2:09 PM, C. Masloch c...@bttr-software.de wrote: Well, the whole point of FreeDOS existing at all is that MS dropped the ball, and they wanted a free alternative that they could update and share freely. ... which does not necessitate strong copyleft, as we all know. It also does not necessitate that language choice, actually. I'm aware of pragmatic reasoning for both though, you merely didn't make it explicit here. Originally it was PD-DOS, but they quickly changed that. I can only blindly guess why since I wasn't personally involved back then. GPLv2 has (by far) the most developers among open source-ish licenses, so you have to go with the flow if you want their help. GPL isn't bad, per se, just annoying, too long, and I'm tired of reading endless arguments about its finer points (just code, damn it, screw the license, who cares? just make it public, free for all, it's not munitions, for freak's sake, lighten up, blah). This is not at all how I would criticise the GPL, any variant. It's only my opinion, so I obviously don't expect you to mirror it. It's amusing, actually. I /should/ prefer copyleft. I'm aware of the involved trade-off, regarding (conceptually intended) individual and collective freedoms, or that is, (more directly) freedoms as experienced by a specific recipient against freedoms associated with a specific text. Copyleft appears very much like an ingenious compromise that I should appreciate. And yet intuitively it just doesn't feel right. I've not yet found anyone who could convince me to overcome that. I find it results in much wasting of time and ends up with pointless arguing about legalities instead of more code patches. (For that reason, I probably won't be endlessly discussing this here.) It would probably be easier just to let everyone focus on actual goals, but that's apparently impossible in some cases. GPL neither solves all problems nor avoids them all either (and wasn't meant to, either). You can't please everyone. Easier just to do your own thing, not take things too seriously, cooperate when possible, etc. -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] FreeDOS compatibility with DOS applications
While you and I may prefer BSD-ish licenses for various reasons (esp. since if a developer hates the GPL, they won't contribute at all, which seemingly defeats the point), the majority of enthusiasts by far prefer and use GPLv2, esp. here in FreeDOS (hi, Jim!). GPL isn't bad, per se, just annoying, too long, and I'm tired of reading endless arguments about its finer points (just code, damn it, screw the license, who cares? just make it public, free for all, it's not munitions, for freak's sake, lighten up, blah). I'll just add that I do prefer the GNU GPL because it suits my needs. It's established, and easy to apply to my programs. Others may prefer different licenses, and that's fine. The BSD is a good license, I just don't prefer it for my own work. Same with the MIT license, or Artistic license. Go with what you are comfortable with. I just ask that you choose a license that preserves the freedom of the source code, so that everyone may use it and contribute to it. Avoid licenses that limit the freedom of users, including licenses that look free but exclude certain classes of users (May not be used by the military or For non-commercial use only.) For example, the Caldera's DR-DOS/OpenDOS open license is an example of a license that does nothing to preserve freedom. Caldera had no interest in allowing others to contribute. Their license was basically look, but do not touch. I do not like this license. http://www.freedos.org/technotes/press/opendos.txt Having different licenses is a good thing, in that developers can choose a license that suits their needs. However, these different licenses does make it a bit difficult to share code between projects, if they have different licenses. That's another reason why I prefer to contribute only to programs under the GNU GPL, so I can easily re-use code from one project to help out another. As far as the version of the GNU GPL, I happen to prefer version 2 for DOS programs because I think version 2 applies well to statically-linked programs (typical in DOS.) -jh -- Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
