On Tue, 30 Mar 2021 at 03:01, Michael Christopher Robinson
<[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Stallman is clearly a hard person to get along with. Part of the reason is
> that Microsoft has been a monopoly for so long that the GPL was the only way
> anyone could have a personal computer run something not MS-DOS and not
> Windows NT in a realistic sense that they don't have to buy a license for.
There was a lot more to it than that.
However, even in the 1980s there were multiple non-MS OSes for the x86 PC.
You know the PC was launched with 3 different OSes?
• CP/M-86 (from Digital Research)
• the p-System (from UCSD)
• PC DOS from IBM, i.e. MS-DOS, i.e. SCP QDOS
> Until Microsoft isn't a monopoly, Stallman almost has to be the way he is and
> can hardly change at all.
Agreed.
> Realize in the 90s that people who wanted a PC regardless of whether or not
> they wanted to run a Microsoft OS at all on it had to pay for a Windows 9x
> license.
This was MS corrupt and criminal practice -- it was not really
anything to do with the GPL. It is *necessary* to understand the
difference and separate these. I am not sure that you do, Christopher.
> Even today, where is NT lite from Microsoft?
Well, I do mostly agree there.
> Why can't any of us run 32 bit Windows XP without having to activate it
> today?
It is MS code, MS property. If it were still available to be legally
used, MS would remain responsibile. It would be a virus magnet, and MS
would be to blame.
MS does not really have a choice in this. Either it stops it being
used, or it allows it and must maintain it -- an impossible task -- or
it makes it free and enables a competitor to its own current products.
> Windows 2000 Professional doesn't have to be activated, but that isn't even
> open and should not be used without a license either where Microsoft won't
> let you buy one from them for it at any price.
Same argument applies.
> Microsoft Windows 10 Pro 64 bit is too expensive at ~$200 for a retail copy.
Win10 is effectively free. The free upgrade from 7/8/8.1 *still
works*. MS is doing the decent thing here, much as I dislike admitting
it.
> I don't appreciate Microsoft doing away with keys on top of forcing
> activation and the OS potentially not working unless it can hook to the
> Microsoft Cloud and verify that you are still allowed to use it. This is
> terribly abusive along with requiring activation in the first place.
I tend to agree, but part of the problem with vast amounts of malware
was cracked copies of XP, and even uncracked and so unupdated copies,
in Asia where PC use became very widespread in the noughties.
MS had to do something to stop this.
> When ReactOS is stable, anybody who needs Windows NT won't have to rent
> Windows from Microsoft anymore where that is obviously Microsoft's opinion of
> what you will have to do in the near future to have Windows NT on your
> computer period.
If ReactOS ever catches up, MS will sue it into a smoking crater.
> All dos based Microsoft Windows versions and even Windows Millenium are
> available online for free where museums are taking the huge risk of being
> prosecuted by Microsoft for giving it away for free with all the keys.
IMHO these are largely obsolete and MS should make the source code
open -- but that would hugely help ReactOS etc to catch up. So they
would hurt themselves by doing it.
> Your freedos is extremely valuable and extremely important and it is both
> needed and wanted
Agreed.
> FSF should give a fork of Freedos 1.3 the proper label
Hang on, what? This is where you seem to start wildly zooming off into
fantasy land.
> if that fork is made for the right reasons and given the proper limitations.
What reasons, what limitations? Why?
> A fork needs to be done
Why?
> and Freedos 1.3 needs to be fully released as planned.
Why do you think it won't?
> The fork of Freedos 1.3 needs to have IDE
Why?
> and floppy support removed completely from the kernel.
Why?
> This fork has to target modern PCs that do not have a BIOS
What do you think needs to be changed for that?
> and it cannot support any proprietary software,
Ludicrous. If it's DOS, it runs old DOS apps. Most are proprietary.
This makes zero sense.
> but there isn't any proprietary dos software that requires a modern computer
> without a bios to run anyways.
Explain?
> For DOS to live any longer and have any relevance in 2021, we need to bring
> it to modern hardware.
[1] It *does* run on modern hardware
[2] What relevance do you think it will have? Why?
> The simplest way to bring FreeDOS to modern hardware
... which it runs on already...
> is to make a fork
Why?
> that will run syslinux
Why?
> as a superior alternative to grub2 on an EFI computer without a bios.
Why?
> Grub2 royally sucks IMO.
I don't like it myself but hey.
> Part of the reason grub sucks is that it started out as a bootloader for
> every imaginable PC OS including Windows NT that works with BIOS.
Not really. It just chainloads them.
> Grub2 is nothing like Grub1 because Grub1 requires you to have a BIOS to
> work where Grub2 doesn't expect you to have a BIOS at all.
Is that not a good thing? It is what you said you wanted earlier in
the same paragraph.
> EFI is extremely controversial for people who primarily want to run open
> source operating systems like Linux and who don't want or need to run any
> closed source software.
Agreed.
> Sadly, secure boot which is tightly tied to EFI is primarily a Microsoft
> thing.
Agreed.
> The open source software world needs to deal with secure boot adequately and
> permanently.
How?
> There is a need to stop Microsoft from controlling what a personal computer
> is and what people can have on their personal computer.
Maybe an easier answer is just to move to a different type of computer.
> Microsoft still has too much control evidenced by the fact that Windows 9x
> is not open, not free, and there is no free version of Windows NT either from
> Microsoft despite Microsoft's promise that there would be before Windows XP
> debuted.
{{Citation needed}}
Who said that, when, where?
> Windows 10 is still Windows NT in a lot of ways.
Not "in a lot of ways". In *all* ways. Win10 is NT 7.
> Microsoft won't allow anyone to legally use a closed source copy of Windows
> NT 32 bit without purchasing a license from them.
Which is fair; it is theirs.
> Microsoft won't let you buy a license for 32 bit NT, not even Windows Vista.
Not true. There is still 32-bit Win10. It's still a free upgrade.
> You should never have to buy 32 bit Windows NT period to use it legally with
> Microsoft hating it so much these days.
Why? It is their property. Nobody really gets to tell them what to do
with something they wrote.
> Microsoft even hates Windows 7 64 bit already.
Only because it competes with their own later efforts. It still works
and you can trivially hack it to get corporate updates.
> Most people want to use 32 bit Windows NT when Linux won't cut it.
{{citation needed}}
Says who?
> Increasingly, that won't be a problem anymore because of ReactOS, but we
> aren't quite there yet.
I predict it never will.
> ReactOS by the way in VirtualBox on CentOS 8 is stable enough that you can
> play Warcraft II Battle.Net edition all the way through no problem.
[...]
That's nice, I guess. I don't really play games so I neither know nor care.
A lot runs fine under WINE. I run Word 97 under WINE, because
LibreOffice does not have an outliner.
> The ReactOS project was going to provide a free Windows 95, but they decided
> that that cannot be accomplished.
Well, "massively difficult", "can't use modern hardware", "no point".
Not the same thing.
> When ReactOS stabilizes fully, maybe the Win32k subsystem can be ported to
> FreeDOS and we can have a true drop in replacement for Windows 98SE on top of
> FreeDOS.
Not without a ton of other OS infrastructure, no.
This is profoundly unrealistic and you have not said why anyone would
want or need it.
> For that matter, there isn't even an open source drop in replacement for
> Windows 3.1 where you shouldn't even bother using the closed source Windows
> 3.1 or Windows 3.11.
Who needs it? Why?
> Jim, FreeDOS has to be forked.
Why?
> The current FreeDOS 1.3 needs to be finished and you need to continue the
> existing FreeDOS as an IDE/Floppy controller/BIOS DOS that isn't finished
> until everything that you need MSDOS6.22 for works perfectly in FreeDOS.
Is that not what they are doing?
> The current FreeDOS has poor support for SATA and practically no support for
> USB.
What support do you want? DOS is DOS. It is never going to be a
multitasking OS with device insertion on the fly, and if it did, it
would not be DOS any more.
> SATA and USB support need to be removed completely from the current FreeDOS
> IMO
Why?
> and you need to state clearly that you don't intend to support these
> adequately in the current FreeDOS.
Why?
> An alternative to a forking of FreeDOS that makes sense is to complement
> FreeDOS with a high quality emulator that is targeted at a modern PC to make
> that PC look like nothing newer than an Intel Pentium I 233 MMX on an early
> 32 bit PCI motherboard that still had 2 EISA slots on it.
Why?
> This emulator needs to be perfect and it needs to be maintained going
> forward.
Why? For whom? For what? Who will pay?
What is wrong with DOSbox?
> It should be easier to fake old hardware on modern hardware than it was to
> get to FreeDOS 1.0.
There are multiple PC emulators already.
> You can literally strip down modern Linux to create this emulator.
How?
Why?
> Your emulator is the current Linux kernel stripped down to create a fake
> Pentium I MMX on a modern PC that doesn't have a BIOS at all.
That is not even related to what the Linux kernel does, you know.
> The threat of secure boot and EFI to Linux and FreeDOS and any other open
> source operating system is real.
Up to a point, but you have not proposed anything to tackle this in any way.
> If you want most people to care about FreeDOS, fork it now.
You still have not explained why.
> The fork must run syslinux
Why?
> on a modern motherboard that expects you to turn on secure boot for Windows
> 10.
Who cares? Turn it off, boot DOS as it is.
> Don't even call the fork FreeDOS exactly
You want the project to abandon everything it's done for 25 years or
so and you have not given a single reason. Do you know how insane you
are sounding?
Very mad indeed, if you do not realise. Deranged and irrational.
> because DOS in the modern era has never been on anything that doesn't have a
> BIOS
How could it?
> with the notable exception of the Raspberry Pi where I'm curious how that
> even works.
So go read. Learn. Do less ranting.
> The Pi uses a RISC processor
To be specific, an Acorn RISC machine, like the one I bought in 1989
and which still can run the same OS: RISC OS. You should try it. There
are free emulators if you don't have a Pi.
> where the 8086 all the way up to the Penitum I 233 MMX is a CISC processor.
Still is.
> The Pi processor is an orange where the IBM PC processor is an apple and
> you can't compare apples to oranges. I love apples and oranges where it's
> absurd to try and compare them.
Totally irrelevant and mystifying.
This was a very long rant with very little direction and you have not
done anything to explain why you want what you say you want.
--
Liam Proven – Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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