Date:	Thu, 3 Apr 1997 15:15:23 -0500 (EST)
From:	Paul W Brannan <brannanp AT musc DOT edu>
To:	Pedro Giffuni <pgiffuni AT fps DOT biblos DOT unal DOT edu DOT co>
cc:	alaric AT abwillms DOT demon DOT co DOT uk, opendos-developer AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: The compiling tools
In-Reply-To:	<334337DF.232C@fps.biblos.unal.edu.co>
Message-ID:	<Pine.ULT.3.95.970403150919.8725B-100000@atrium.musc.edu>
MIME-Version:	1.0

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

The reason for supplying LFN extensions to MS-DOS is so that we will gain
support for OpenDOS. That's how IBM became successful in the PC market.
They gave away specs for their systems, so other companies could make
clones.  That was great, because more people bought PC's, knowing that it
would be compatible with whatever software they bought.  Then, when IBM
came out with the PS/2, they kept the design a secret.  That's why Linux
won't run on computers with MCA architecture.  Anyway, about the time the
PS/2 came out was about the time that other companies started thriving;
they came up with their own standards, etc., which were even better.

I don't think we have to worry about helping Microsoft out.  Microsoft
doesn't care about DOS; to them, DOS is dead.  To the average user,
however, LFN support in DOS would be great, but most people aren't going
to move to OpenDOS right away.  They probably won't ever move to OpenDOS,
no matter what we do.  But if we have a standard that will work on MS-DOS,
OpenDOS, and Win95/DOS, then programmers will be more likely to support
these features (no one wants to write software for an architecture that
nobody uses!).  I say that LFN support should be available in a device
driver format so that people can use LFN's in MS-DOS as well.

Paul

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