Kenneth J. Davis wrote: > Norbert Remmel wrote: > > ... > >> And I think none of you will say that qhimem is a bad product and >> because of this Jack's memory manager has the right to be a part of >> freedos, again, closed source or not. That really doesn't matter. >> > ... > > The flamewar aside I wanted to make a correction to this; > Jack himself requested his programs not be part of FreeDOS; it just so > happens that his earlier ones with sources are under a license that > allows them to continue to be distributed anyway. The other major issue > is that for all FreeDOS programs,utilities,etc. source is a very > important component; I mean there are tons of good to excellent DOS > programs out there, but without source or permission to include they do > not belong as a part of FreeDOS [the distribution, not the community]. > So regardless of technical merit or not, it really does matter.
Absolutely correct. Over time (by which I mean "since 1994") we've dropped a few packages from the FreeDOS distribution because we've decided the license wasn't compatible with the goals of the FreeDOS Project: "FreeDOS aims to be a complete, free, 100% MS-DOS compatible operating system ... While there are many free operating systems out there, no other free DOS-compatible operating system exists." The key word in that statement is "free". It's part of our name. The other key phrase is "free DOS-compatible operating system". The DOS software that we include in the FreeDOS distribution needs to be freely available to all. To help meet that goal, we prefer open-source software. We tend not to use closed-source applications, unless they are also available to all and have no other restrictions on their use. Jack wrote some very nice code in his programs .. as a developer, I have a high level of respect for him. Honestly, I wish Jack the best of luck in what he does. But unfortunately, Jack felt there was a personality conflict with others on the project, and he chose to make his software non-free, both in terms of source code and in terms of its use. Jack specifically requested/insisted his programs not be used by the FreeDOS Project. We can continue using the programs he released under the GNU GPL, but we cannot use his "Q" drivers because those are closed to us. -jh -- I'm sorry my president's an idiot. I didn't vote for him. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys -- and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
