> Mr. Hall,
> 
> My name is Jason Compton, and I'm working on a story on embedded DOSes for
> the Chicago Tribune's Silicon Prairie magazine.  I'd love to talk to you
> about FreeDOS, and you seem to be a primary contact.  Please let me know
> when you're available, and whether a phone or e-mail conversation would
> work better for you.
> 
> -- 
> Jason Compton                                jcompton@xnet.com

(1)
> Why continue to work on a project like FreeDOS?  Even though not everybody
> loves Windows, weren't a lot of people happy to get away from DOS in the
> first place?

 You have to remember where FreeDOS got its start.  This was back in
 1994, when DOS was still a popular operating system.  It was simple
 and straightforward (for a lot of people) and it was stable.  At
 least, more stable than Windows was proving to be at the time.  So
 people kind of got attached to DOS in a way.  They liked having it
 around.  There were lots of programs written for it.  I think that
 WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 were probably the most popular DOS
 programs around.  Especially with a lot of students that I knew.
 
 And don't forget that a lot of companies still depended on DOS to run
 their business.  Heck, a lot of companies still use DOS today,
 particularly in the financials area and in data processing.
 
 So I guess my response to your second question is: no, not everyone
 was happy to "get away from DOS".
  
 There had been announcements from within Microsoft that soon they
 would do away with MS-DOS, and replace it completely with Windows.
 (This was, of course, the promise of Windows 95.  But we also know
 that Windows 95 _still_ has DOS at its core.)
  
 When Microsoft said they were going to drop MS-DOS in favor of
 Windows, it seemed to strike a chord with a lot of DOS users.  We
 didn't want to have to give up DOS to go use the mouse.  I saw a lot
 of posts on newsgroups like comp.os.msdos.misc by people asking if
 there was some better alternative.  DR-DOS was cool, but who could say
 if even DR-DOS would survive in an age of Windows?
 
 So, people started asking on the DOS newsgroups if anyone had started
 a free DOS project, something similar to the Linux project.  People
 really thought that free software was cool, and that a free DOS would
 be a great thing to have.
  
 For probably a few months I watched the same question come up on the
 newsgroups: "is there a free DOS I can download?"  No one was
 answering the question, which pretty much implied to me that there was
 no such thing as a free DOS.  So I got together with a few other
 programmers, and we wrote FreeDOS.
 
 I continue to work on FreeDOS because people find it useful and
 interesting.  And I suppose as long as there are people out there who
 continue to use and enjoy FreeDOS, I'll always be involved with
 FreeDOS.


(2)
> Is FreeDOS an attractive option for embedded systems, as DR-DOS and RxDOS
> attempt to be?  Why or why not?

 FreeDOS should be a very attractive option for embedded systems.
 Actually, the FreeDOS kernel got it start by playing the operating
 system for DOS-based embedded systems running on a M6000-series CPU.
 
 You'll find DOS today mostly in three areas:
 
   (1) as someone's primary operating system (not very common these
   days, since true hackers are probably running Linux, and most
   everyone else is running Windows)
 
   (2) running as the DOS in an _emulated_ PC environment.  Look at
   Linux DOSEmu (http://www.dosemu.org) for one example.  This allows
   people to run DOS programs from inside Linux.  It was a great way
   to run your favorite DOS programs before a clone was available
   under Linux (for example, a lot of people ran WordPerfect under
   Linux before a good office suite became available for Linux.)
 
   (3) in an embedded system (probably the most common)
 
 Embedded systems are very interesting for me, but I didn't get into
 them until I got more involved with FreeDOS.
 
 I understand that there is a company in Japan that already uses
 FreeDOS in an embedded system, but I have no idea what company that
 is.  (I really should start a list someday of who is using FreeDOS.)
 
 One reason that embedded manufacturers might be interested in FreeDOS
 is access to the source code.  The FreeDOS kernel, and most of the
 FreeDOS programs, are distributed under the GNU General Public
 License, so it is free.  A company that is thinking about using DOS in
 an embedded device to control a robot arm, for example, might find
 that it would save time to just add kernel support for the robot (as a
 device) rather than find some "hack" workaround that wouldn't be as
 efficient.
 
 You can't do that with "closed source" DOS alternatives.  DR-DOS
 claims to be open source, but it really isn't.  You do have to pay to
 be able to use the source code in this way.  With other DOS systems
 (even Microsoft is trying to sell MS-DOS as an embedded DOS) you don't
 can't even look at the source code, no matter what you do.  With
 FreeDOS, you already have access to the source code under the GNU GPL,
 and you are free to make any modifications you need.
 
 Another reason to use FreeDOS in embedded devices is because you can
 have a "light" kernel.  Let's say you were creating an embedded device
 that never read from the keyboard - it only reads from a serial port,
 and displays to the video adapter.  Also, your design specs don't give
 you much memory to work with.
 
 If you used another "closed source" DOS alternative, including DR-DOS,
 you wouldn't be able to do much about it.  However, with FreeDOS there
 is nothing to stop you from "ripping out" of the kernel anything that
 deals with keyboard i/o.  Similarly, you can remove anything that
 doesn't relate specifically to your application.  In this way, you can
 build a custom kernel that has a much smaller footprint than any other
 DOS solution.


(3)
> How does FreeDOS compare to DR and Rx, in terms of MS-DOS compatibility and
> new features?

 The latest kernel builds are _very_ compatible with MS-DOS.  FreeDOS
 runs on my little laptop that I use for developing new programs.  So
 it has to support compilers, debuggers, linkers, editors, and all
 variety of programs.  I have received email from a person who has
 installed Windows to run on FreeDOS, using the latest kernel.  And
 Windows doesn't really like to run on anything that isn't MS-DOS.
 
 But we don't stop there.  We have also added many programs to our
 collection (the Beta2 Distribution is old - the Beta3 Distribution
 will be out in a week or so).  For example, many users like to have
 some UNIX functionality around, so we added programs like 'which' and
 'tee' and 'du'.  Also, we include a powerful emacs-like editor for
 FreeDOS, as well as a graphical desktop manager, and compilers and
 assemblers.
 
 And let's compare to DR-DOS.  We have a program called CuteMouse,
 written by nagyd@almos.vein.hu (Nagy Daniel).  Go look at CuteMouse,
 then go look at Caldera's DRMOUSE.  They are the same.  Caldera lifted
 the source code to CuteMouse, re-labelled it, and distributed it as
 their own.  (CuteMouse was not under a very strong license, so Caldera
 was able to do this - and I understand Nagy worked out some kind of
 arrangement with Caldera that allowed them to continue using it.)
 Caldera's official position is that the DRMOUSE program was submitted
 by a volunteer, and they were not aware of its CuteMouse origins.


--Jim Hall