Message-ID:	<334337DF.232C@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co>
Date:	Wed, 02 Apr 1997 20:53:51 -0800
From:	Pedro Giffuni <pgiffuni AT fps DOT biblos DOT unal DOT edu DOT co>
MIME-Version:	1.0
To:	alaric AT abwillms DOT demon DOT co DOT uk
CC:	opendos-developer AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: The compiling tools
References:	<860000658 DOT 0520247 DOT 0 AT abwillms DOT demon DOT co DOT uk>

Alaric B. Williams wrote:
> ...
> there isn't a great deal that can be done right now. Once this is
> sorted, and Caldera can move their people away from writing makefiles
> into fixing bugs, it might be worth reducing the licensing restrictions!
> 
I don't buy this, if this is the licensing of the executables, I don't
want to the see the licensing of the sources. There is no excuse for a
"beta" licensing like this one. Hope I'm wrong though...

> 
> At the moment, it looks like we'll be after two seperate releases (OpenDOS and
> OpenDOS/32). Either way, I'm petitioning for an extended API thing with all the
> cool features, that can be run on top of MS-DOS as well, so it will be worth
> developing software for it. An OpenDOS with a snazzy LFN API will be useless
> as it is, since the software won't work in any kind of DOS box. Not even under
> dosemu!
>
There is no need to split the distribution in a first stage. Since
IBMBIOS.COM and the other base files are only in 16-bit assembler, this
base code must first be cleaned in order to use a free compiler, or at
least to use only one compiler. Bugs have to be fixed, and probably some
features added. An option could be choosing having the second and
subsequent disks in 16 bit or 32 bit, but it seems clear the first disk
will be 16-bit (and it should also work with DOSEMU).

I don't think we should extend MS-DOS. Microsoft doesn't care about us,
we shouldn't care about them either.
 


Pedro.


> ABW
> --
> Alaric B. Williams (alaric AT abwillms DOT demon DOT co DOT uk)
> 
>    ---<## OpenDOS FAQ ##>---
> Plain HTML: http://www.delorie.com/opendos/faq/

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