Re: [Freedos-user] Source code to Windows 9x and ME...
On Thu, Sep 26, 2019 at 8:54 PM geneb wrote: > On Thu, 26 Sep 2019, Ralf Quint wrote: > > > interest to open source ANY part of ANY windows. Even Windows 1.x and > > 2.x, which are on GitHub now, are still copyrighted. So it all comes > > Copyright has nothing to do with how "open" something is. Correct. Things like the Linux kernel and the various stuff for FreeDOS are open source under the GPL. GPLed code is copyrighted software, and the author retains the copyright. By default, the GPL licenses you to get GPLed source and binaries, use them and share them free of charge, and encourages you to contribute changes you make to the source back upslream. It does require you to share it as you got it, with copyright notices intact. It's also "viral", and any code you write that links against GPLed code becomes GPLed too. (This is a major sticking point for some folks.) If you want to issue a closed source fork of GPLed code, you can try to negotiate a license with the copyright holder that will let you do so. A major problem for open source is incompatibilities in different open source licenses. It's a source of irony when you can't use open source code form another product in something you are writing because the license it uses is incompatible with the one you chose. (And I understand that GPL v2 is incompatible with GPL v3, which just compounds the irony.) My preference these days is for things under an MIT or BSD license, which is a lot more open than GPL. > g. __ Dennis ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Source code to Windows 9x and ME...
The comment that a pick and place machine designed around MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 9x/ME is a funny machine is a little disingenuous. Freedos didn't exist in a useable form back then and Windows 9x/ME in it's day was dominant. I'm hopeful that we could use freedos on the real time system, we can at least try. Trouble may crop up with respect to the shared memory card which is ISA based. Depends on what interfaces in MS-DOS 6.22 are important and which ones aren't. The advantage if Freedos works is that it is supported currently. Potentially, usb support and fat32 support could come in handy. Does Microsoft Scandisk for Windows 98se work on freedos? We could use more modern SBC's with Freedos potentially than what we can use with MS-DOS. Software doesn't rot, but hardware does. I'm hopeful too that we can use at least Windows 2000 on the gui. There is no direct replacement for Windows 98/ME. These systems are very resource hungry and only moderately stable. If we can get away with Windows 2000, we may be able to replace that in the future with a stable ReactOS. At that point, we are open source and supported across both heads. -- Michael C. Robinson ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
Re: [Freedos-user] Source code to Windows 9x and ME...
> Freedos should be capable of supporting Windows 3.1, at least in > standard mode. AFAIK it does (not that it was ever important for the developers). > Wouldn't it be great if freedos could support that better and 3.11 as well > along with a lot of programs from that era? just organize your millions of $, and we will organize the programmers ;) > Maybe source code won't help, but > the interfaces and other engineering information could be quite useful for > someone trying to support programs designed for Windows 16 bit. That said, > Win32 based programs are of interest to anyone who needs to run them in a > dos based environment. in theory, that's possible. there was a Win32S emulation layer for win3.11. in praxis, even more M$ required. this simply no going to happen. > There is a lot of industrial software that depends > on a combination of MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 98 SE. definitively no. Windows 98 SE never ran on top of MSDOS 6.22. and even if it would: this software has run for 20+ years, and should run many more years. on of the best properties of software is that it doesn't rot. > There is also the potential that freedos can run this old > software on newer hardware that isn't 20+ years old. The biggest problem > with 98se/ME is that there aren't drivers for hardware that is newer than > the Pentium II pretty much. I simply don't know if Win98 requires any drivers for the CPU. but I do know that neither MSDOS 6.22 nor FreeDOS (or any other DOS) have any drivers for any CPU. so running FreeDOS on a I7-9060 doesn't help you a little bit with Win98 and your funny machine. > Getting an industrial PII on a single board for a PICMG 1.3 backplane or an > ISA backplane, that is probably the best bet for the pick and place machine > we want to get up and running. yes indeed. > The machine is worth $20k-$30k. Yes we > could pull the two heads and try a set of heads based on Windows 7, but > that is nearing EOL already. don't put your Windows 7 on the internet, and it will live happily for 20 more years. your Win98 machines are EOLed for 15 years, and nobody cared. > I'd say that my brother's > machine is worth at least $15k right now. As you say it, $15k sounds like much. translate this to programmers hours and it goes away fairly quick. Tom ___ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
