someone schrieb: > Quoting Ulrich Hansen: >> The legal situation is unfortunate: Some packages seem to include >> files from MS Client, while Microsoft's license does not allow such >> distribution. > > How hard would it be to port Linux's TCP/IP stack to Freedos? Dos is > supposedly a very simple, albeit limited OS. For some things such as > kiosks though, a network booted dos would be very nice. As work on > freedos 1.1 progresses I'd like to see a free replacement for > Microsoft Client get developed. I hope there is careful consideration > that dos's simplicity is it's strongest selling point.
I'd like to write down a few ideas about it. I know here are people with *much more* experience in DOS networking and I am not a programmer as well. So please correct me, if I'm wrong. IMHO MS Client is useful for two things: 1. Accessing SMB shares from a DOS machine. 2. Using a NDIS driver for TCP/IP networking (with DIS_PKT). Everything else is already there, as free software or public domain: A TCP/IP stack (internal: WatTCP, Watt-32 (LGPL); external: NTCPDRV (PD)), packet drivers and packet driver shims, and last but not least a lot of useful packet driver based TCP/IP applications. The problem: MS Client's license "permits you to make and use an unlimited number of copies [...] for your internal use". You may "transfer the SOFTWARE on a permanent basis provided you retain no copies". So distribution is NOT allowed. There are two ideas to solve that problem. For creating network bootdisks, Alain M. suggested (in PM) to write a script that runs on the user side. As I understand it, this script would ask the user to accept MS Client's license and then automatically download the appropriate MS Client files from their original download location, expand them and merge them into the bootdisk. It may be comparable to "PE Builder". This would respect the copyright. The other idea is to write a free replacement for MS Client. I think this would be a big task, so let's ask: How urgently is it needed? *Drivers*: How are other peoples experiences with modern network cards? Are there still packet drivers or at least ODI drivers included? Or is NDIS2 the only DOS driver left that is still supported by manufacturers? Then you need indeed at least PROTMAN.DOS, PROTMAN.EXE and NETBIND.COM or free replacements for these three files to get the network up. But what, if they even stop to support NDIS2? I mean, it is also pretty old, isn't it? Then FreeDOS had to write its own free drivers, like people do for GNU/Linux. Instead of NDIS, wouldn't it be better to write packet drivers then, which are already a free standard for DOS networking? So FreeDOS would need another "packet driver king". That's a bit utopic. Or can GNU/Linux network drivers somehow be used in FreeDOS? *SMB*: I know everybody seems to be pretty enthusiastic on the web about MS Client and accessing and providing SMB shares from DOS to Windows XP or GNU/Linux Samba. Maybe everything worked well for them. I had a hard time with it. MS Client with TCP/IP protocol consumes a lot of memory, everything gets sluggish and if I want to make a DOS MS Client communicate with GNU/Linux Samba (from Debian Etch) I have to configure Samba in a way that we don't need to talk about security afterwards, as there isn't any left. So is this really worth the effort? Instead: Couldn't we just get the network drivers from GNU/Linux to work under FreeDOS and to provide a packet driver interface? DOSEMU emulates a DOS packet driver. And once Zipslack ran atop of DOS. Or is this a silly idea? And now I have to go and buy some nice christmas gifts or I will have a bad time next week... :-) Uli ------------------------------------------------------------------------- SF.Net email is sponsored by: Check out the new SourceForge.net Marketplace. It's the best place to buy or sell services for just about anything Open Source. http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;164216239;13503038;w?http://sf.net/marketplace _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
