What are the goals at this point for Freedos 1.1? When might it actually be released?
Freedos 1.0 definitely has some bugs still that could be fixed. Updating Freedos 1.0 is haphazard at best, especially with limited networking support and movement towards a newer updating standard. What are the long term goals for Freedos? I would like to see an effort to move from a free dos system to a free Windows 9x/Windows Millenium replacement. I would also like to see the abandonware issue get revisited as sadly most people who still use dos are going to want to use a software package that is commercially licensed but not legally obtainable. One area that I feel freedos at this point is weak in is networking. Windows 9x style networking essentially isn't available. I'm talking long file names, broad network card support, broad printer support, the works. I'm talking printer sharing. Another area that Freedos is weak in is word processing. You can download and obtain an illegal copy of Microsoft Word for dos or Windows and that will possibly work, but that is illegal. I would like to see an effort started to find out if Openoffice can be supported on a dos based platform. Can a dos based system running some kind of graphical user interface support the current crop of Java programs? Even a free word processor that is comparable to Wordperfect 6.0 dos ported to Freedos would be a great thing. So in short here are areas I want to see some emphasis placed on: 1) Create a Freedos compatible clone of Windows 9x/Windows Millenium. No, the ReactOS project isn't trying to do this and never will. 2) Make a best of Wordperfect/best of Word word processor that is GPLed available to Freedos users. 3) Abandonware. This issue isn't going away unless popular commercial programs are replaced with truly adequate free alternatives. 4) Fix the bugs as much as possible, this is critical for a 1.1 release. 5) Start a wiki on how to update Freedos and move towards people being able to set up a local Linux server to update their Freedos machines from. Perhaps a protocol is needed to keep these local update servers up to date. I'm thinking: ftp, rsync, http, or possibly something else. I for one would like to get updates on compact disc or DVD, the snail mail protocol. 6) Make a new installer that offers more advanced customization, but use open source tools to create it. 7) A lot of people don't use pop to access their email where Arachne doesn't support IMAP. Please someone address this. If Freedos had come out with a 1.0 release at the same time that MS-DOS 6.22 hit the scene, abandonware would be less of an issue. Unfortunately, most commercial dos programs that people want to use these days are very old, hard to obtain legally, or both. This is where pirateware sites come in and things get dicey unless there are free alternatives. People talk about Foxpro a lot, how about cloning it? It seems that there is a lot of emphasis on programming languages and some emphasis on hardware, but what about application software? Programming languages and hardware drivers constitute tools to build application software with. Is it time to make some decisions about how far Freedos should go concerning: word processing, web browsing, email, games, accounting software, etcetera? In 10 years time, the abandonware problem will probably get worse. I think the best way to address the abandonware issue is to steer people towards Linux for word processing, web browsing, general office productivity apps, and email. Beyond that, start cloning popular proprietary dos software. A project to go from HX Dos extender to a full blown dos compatible Windows compatible gui that improves over time, this could be a major catalyst pushing Freedos development going forward. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SOLARIS 10 is the OS for Data Centers - provides features such as DTrace, Predictive Self Healing and Award Winning ZFS. Get Solaris 10 NOW http://p.sf.net/sfu/solaris-dev2dev _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
