F O R    I M M E D I A T E   R E L E A S E
7 August 1999


RxDOS is now Free Software



RxDOS is now freely available under the GNU Public License. Distribution and
use of RxDOS is free so long as you acknowledge the original source of the
software and freely make available to others the sources to any derived
work. The FreeDOS project web site, http://www.freedos.org will be the
initial distribution site for downloading, discussing, and evolving RxDOS.

RxDOS is a DOS replacement operating system.  It is a stable, high
performance system designed for embedded application use. It was originally
released in book form, Dissecting DOS (1994 Addison-Wesley). You can find
out more about the book at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/020162687X/o/qid=934042853/sr=8-1/002
-1027548-5689804

The full GNU GPL can be found on the web at
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html


RxDOS features:

* Internal data structure compatibility with MSDOS
* Supports all commands
* Supports FAT32 and Long filenames (including int 21 fct 71 APIs)

RxDOS does not support:

* Himem.sys
* NewDeal Office
* Is not supplied with utilities like format, fdisk and others

Requirements:

* RxDOS is written in assembly language and requires MASM 5.x


Interesting Projects:

* Move RxDOS to NASM and/or MASM 6.x
* Add support for Himem.sys and NewDeal Office
* Package RxDOS with utilities
* Fix assorted small bugs

Really Interesting Projects:

We should open a discussion on how to merge FreeDOS and RxDOS to create
either two distributions or to create a single FreeDOS/RxDOS distribution.
We should solicit opinions, commentary and suggestions.  I am open to any
and all ideas.


mike.podanoffsky@mindspring.com