Re: [Freedos-user] UltraDMA warning corrected

[Jim Hall]

On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 7:25 PM, Bret Johnson  wrote:
> There's also a question of the timing, since I think Jack wrote and released 
> those programs and source code before the MS-DOS source code was released 
> (unless Jack had gotten access to some MS source code earlier than that).  I 
> also think Jack used to program for a living, though I'm not sure if it was 
> DOS-related or not.
>
> I've looked at some of Jack's earlier source code.  If he was "tainted" by 
> something he did (either earlier or later), am I now "tainted" too?  Is it 
> possible that anybody who ever has or will work on or look at 
> commercial/proprietary software is forever "tainted" and can't work on free 
> stuff any more?  Are you "tainted" when you buy a book that has some sample 
> source code in it?  Am I "tainted" because I've looked at the IBM Technical 
> References that contain the BIOS source code for early PC's?
>
> I can certainly understand the paranoia from a totally volunteer organization 
> like FreeOOS, but there needs to be some reasonable perspective applied to 
> this at some point in time.
>


I am not a lawyer, but over time I have received advice from lawyers.

I understand it is the direct viewing of proprietary source code that
matters. If you examine Microsoft's source code, then you become
"tainted" (legal term to mean information was obtained illegally or
unlawfully). I am told such knowledge is also called "fruit of the
poisonous tree." If you only examined someone else's open source code
that may be (unknown to you) tainted by proprietary source code, then
you do not become tainted.


While I understand some people think it an overreaction, we must avoid
any suggestion that we benefit from proprietary source code. I do not
think it likely that Microsoft would take action against an open
source DOS operating system in 2016, but that does not matter. The
right thing to do is avoid proprietary source code in developing
FreeDOS.

For any developer who did examine the MS-DOS source code, I ask that
they do not contribute to FreeDOS programs that replace MS-DOS
functionality. Specifically, this means programs in the Base category:

http://freedos.sourceforge.net/software/?cat=base

However, FreeDOS includes extra functionality not found in MS-DOS.
These features did not exist in any version of MS-DOS. Even if you
have studied the MS-DOS source code, I believe you can contribute to
the non-Base parts of FreeDOS.

--
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311=/4140
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] UltraDMA warning corrected

[Eric Auer]

Hi Jim,

> I am concerned by this statement from Jack's email: "Take a look at
> the sources for Microsoft HIMEM or EMM386, as I have..." This is the
> first I was aware that Jack had reviewed any source code from
> Microsoft.

...

> When Microsoft released the source code to an earlier version of
> MS-DOS (March 2014) we mentioned it on our FreeDOS Technotes page
>  with a note that "If you download
> and study the MS-DOS source code, you should not contribute code to
> FreeDOS afterwards. We want to avoid any suggestion that FreeDOS has
> been 'tainted' by this proprietary code." I have given the same
> warning in other forums.

...

> I see in the software list that we include these programs from Jack:
> 
> BASE > UIDE
> http://www.freedos.org/software/?prog=uide
> * multi-purpose driver for UDMA, CD/DVD (IDE, no ASPI), disk caching
> 
> BASE > XMGR
> http://www.freedos.org/software/?prog=xmgr
> * providing XMSv3
> 
> So we will now need to remove XMGR from the FreeDOS distribution.

You mean because XMGR might be inspired by MS HIMEM? That risk is
indeed plausible. Luckily MS never shipped anything similar to his
UIDE drivers, so UIDE cannot be based on MS DOS source codes :-)

Eric



--
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311=/4140
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] UltraDMA warning corrected

[Tom Ehlert]

> I am concerned by this statement from Jack's email: "Take a look at
> the sources for Microsoft HIMEM or EMM386, as I have…" This is the
> first I was aware that Jack had reviewed any source code from
> Microsoft.

Microsoft made the source for HIMEM.SYS available to programmers in
1988.

"February 7, 1989

Copyright (c) 1988, Microsoft Corporation, Lotus Development
Corporation, Intel Corporation, and AST Research, Inc. Refer to the 
document "eXtended Memory Specification (XMS), ver 2.0" for HIMEM.SYS
copyright and warranty information.
...
Some programmers may want to obtain the full XMS distribution disk,
which contains the source code to HIMEM.SYS, a C interface to the
XMM, a test of test programs, and documentation. In the domestic
United States, to obtain the latest official XMS release disk, call
Microsoft customer service at (800)426-9400 and ask for a copy of the
XMS Specification and it's supplemental diskette."

yes, it's copyrighted and shouldn't be copied. (btw: the source for
himem.asm has no copright mentioned).


but most low level programmers that were active in ~1990 (looong before
FreeDOS) had already looked at this (including me).
and I feel in no way tainted by this.

FreeDOS HIMEM.EXE is in no way influenced by my reading of HIMEM.ASM
in ~1990.

note: source for EMM386 was never published, but leaked to the public
in ~2003. Jack probably talks about this EMM386.


> When Microsoft released the source code to an earlier version of
> MS-DOS (March 2014)
source for MSDOS 1.1 and 2.0 is completely useless for FreeDOS
design and implementation. and has no HIMEM anyway.

BASE >> XMGR
> http://www.freedos.org/software/?prog=xmgr
> * providing XMSv3

> So we will now need to remove XMGR from the FreeDOS distribution.

I don't think so. I took a look at XMGR.ASM. XMGR.ASM is so obviously
coded by Jack (judging by coding style) that the claim of a copyright violation
would be ridiculous.

Tom




--
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311=/4140
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] UltraDMA warning corrected

[Thomas Mueller]

Excerpt from Eric Auer:

> Absolutely NOT TRUE!   "V86" mode was created by Intel to provide a
> way of (a) running 16-bit programs on 32-bit systems, (B) providing
> protection for the system from such programs.   EMS hardware is NOT
> "simulated" but is REQUIRED to access extended memory, which is the
> "E" in EMS!

Wait a moment, EMS=Expanded memory specification.
extended memory is XMS.

EMS was designed for 16-bit pre-80286 CPUs and was a hardware addon that 
required a special driver.

Actual EMS is now long obsolete but is simulated for XMS with special drivers 
such as EMM386 and JEMM; would not boot on my computers currently.


Tom


--
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311=/4140
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] UltraDMA warning corrected

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 11:38 AM, Jim Hall  wrote:
>
> I am not a lawyer, but over time I have received advice from lawyers.

Jim, at risk of sounding very naive (or very stubborn), there's
absolutely no reason to worry about things like this without some kind
of official court judgement directly applied to us. Everything else is
just a guessing game, letting irrational anxiety control us. Unless
someone can officially prove infringement, then it's not worth
destroying anything just on an unofficial whim.

> I understand it is the direct viewing of proprietary source code that
> matters. If you examine Microsoft's source code, then you become
> "tainted" (legal term to mean information was obtained illegally or
> unlawfully). I am told such knowledge is also called "fruit of the
> poisonous tree." If you only examined someone else's open source code
> that may be (unknown to you) tainted by proprietary source code, then
> you do not become tainted.

There is absolutely no point in legally redistributing (under any
license) readable source code unless you are permitting someone else
to read and learn from it at will. No, you usually can't "copy"
verbatim large chunks of code (since everything is locked down,
copyrighted, by default), but you can still try to understand the gist
of it. If they didn't want you to read it, only compile it, then they
could shroud it (as many have done before).

So it's wrong to say that you become tainted by reading it. Reading it
is the whole point, there's absolutely nothing else you can do with it
(except compile, which doesn't need to be "readable").

As long as you don't "copy" any large sections of it (since small,
obvious bits aren't unique enough to be copyrighted), you should be
okay. Reading but not using is not stealing, and proving damages for
something like this heavily depends on any commercial use (for which
there is none for MS-DOS 2.0).

> While I understand some people think it an overreaction, we must avoid
> any suggestion that we benefit from proprietary source code. I do not
> think it likely that Microsoft would take action against an open
> source DOS operating system in 2016, but that does not matter. The
> right thing to do is avoid proprietary source code in developing
> FreeDOS.

Jim, we don't even publicly know what files (utilities, besides
kernel) were in the MS-DOS 2.0 release. Do you? I certainly didn't
care, it's way too old. It won't even run obvious things like DJGPP.
So it's of extremely limited use. I question the usefulness of them
releasing only ancient versions at all, except maybe for historical
purposes. FreeDOS long ago surpassed MS-DOS 2.0! But even for those
few utilities, how would they even transfer? How would you learn or
improve anything from (I don't know what) REPLACE or MOVE or DEBUG?
Give me a break, there's nothing to learn there, and they presumably
aren't in the same programming language / dialect anyways.

> For any developer who did examine the MS-DOS source code, I ask that
> they do not contribute to FreeDOS programs that replace MS-DOS
> functionality. Specifically, this means programs in the Base category:
>
> However, FreeDOS includes extra functionality not found in MS-DOS.
> These features did not exist in any version of MS-DOS. Even if you
> have studied the MS-DOS source code, I believe you can contribute to
> the non-Base parts of FreeDOS.

Linus Torvalds heavily studied and used Minix sources, which was a
UNIX (tm) clone. It was not free/libre at all, they were commercially
selling it with their text book about OSes. Linux eventually wrote his
own kernel, even reusing minixfs, and made it available under a "free
for commercial use" (GPL) license! Nobody stopped him. If anything, he
thrived because so many people saw the usefulness of it.

I tried to tell you this. People are meant to learn from others.
Schools use source code as a teaching method all the time. All
programming books have source code as example. The only thing you
can't do is copy verbatim large sections of code (and redistribute or
sell it, at least not without permission).

Of course, patents are horrible and purposely overcomplicate
everything. But you don't have to worry about that either because any
alleged patents (from MS-DOS 2.0, circa 1983) are long expired.

--
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311=/4140
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] XCOPY

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 4:47 AM, daniele  wrote:
>
> is there any news about having FreeDOS Xcopy work with LFN-Support?
> I'm using DOSLFN:
> but when xcopying file names are kept short.

There was a similar thread about two years ago where several of us
gave some suggestions:

http://sourceforge.net/p/freedos/mailman/message/31617470/

Long story short: you may wish to use either xWcopy or DJGPP's (GNU
FileUtils) "cp" or maybe something else entirely.

http://na.mirror.garr.it/mirrors/djgpp/current/v2gnu/fil41br2.zip

--
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311=/4140
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] UltraDMA warning corrected

[Rugxulo]

Hi,

On Thu, Jan 14, 2016 at 7:17 PM, Ralf Quint  wrote:
> On 1/14/2016 4:20 PM, Rugxulo wrote:
>> Linus Torvalds heavily studied and used Minix sources, which was a
>> UNIX (tm) clone. It was not free/libre at all, they were commercially
>> selling it with their text book about OSes.
>
> Sorry, but that is not correct. Minix was distributed by Tanenbaum (who
> was at that time a professor at the university of Amsterdam) for the
> explicit purpose for students to read and study a Unix like OS.

Great, but Linus did more than just study. He made his own. Not quite
a derivative work (that's my point!) but indeed similar.

> The charge was only for the book that the source code was published in, with
> a small fee for the media (floppy disks) if you wanted to have it in
> digital form.

It's not money I'm talking about but licensing. Minix was not "free"
in any sense. There was (AFAIK) no right to copy, redistribute, modify
at all. Minix was not "freed" until 2000, and of course it was heavily
rewritten later anyways (v3) to where very little is even similar to
classic v2 versions. Maybe some userland of it was from outside public
domain sources, but overall it was not free at all.

Yes, Minix was meant to be studied (as presumably is all source code
that is published unshrouded), but Minix itself was not even freeware.

> The first version available (1.1) was on 8 360KB 5.25"
> floppy disc, costing something around DM30,- back then. I remember that
> because I bought those (but never bought the book).
> So Linus was full within the rights granted by Tanenbaum (Prentice-Hall
> as the publisher). And the only thing he actually "copied" (kind of) was
> the file system.

I'm not implying he "copied" anything (as it was and still is
copyrighted). He presumably implemented compatible file system support
for minixfs before ext (or ext2) were developed. His kernel was
monolithic, not a microkernel, and many other differences. I'm not
implying that he broke anything, but he did heavily study and learn
from Minix. He was not ever considered "tainted" (AFAIK). That's my
point.

> He started Linux also from the get-go as a 80386/32bit project (while
> Minix at that time was only 16bit, 80286 code), using an early version
> of GCC instead of the ACK (Amsterdam Compiler Kit) C compiler used and
> bundled with the Minix floppy disks...

I'm aware of the differences. Everything is different when you
implement it separately. I'm not saying he used code, in fact I'm
claiming the opposite. You are allowed to write your own, even if you
have studied someone else's. They can never stop you from doing that.
That's the whole point of copyright. You only own what you wrote, not
everyone else's. They are always allowed to create different (even if
compatible) versions. (Of course patents ruin everything well beyond
that, but that's a separate issue. Any alleged MS-DOS patents are long
since expired except maybe one or two for Win95-era VFAT.)

Maybe you can still disagree with me, that's fine. I'm no lawyer. But
I still think we're all overreacting here.

--
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311=/4140
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user

Re: [Freedos-user] UltraDMA warning corrected

[Ralf Quint]

On 1/14/2016 4:20 PM, Rugxulo wrote:
> Linus Torvalds heavily studied and used Minix sources, which was a 
> UNIX (tm) clone. It was not free/libre at all, they were commercially 
> selling it with their text book about OSes.
Sorry, but that is not correct. Minix was distributed by Tanenbaum (who 
was at that time a professor at the university of Amsterdam) for the 
explicit purpose for students to read and study a Unix like OS. The 
charge was only for the book that the source code was published in, with 
a small fee for the media (floppy disks) if you wanted to have it in 
digital form. The first version available (1.1) was on 8 360KB 5.25" 
floppy disc, costing something around DM30,- back then. I remember that 
because I bought those (but never bought the book).
So Linus was full within the rights granted by Tanenbaum (Prentice-Hall 
as the publisher). And the only thing he actually "copied" (kind of) was 
the file system.
He started Linux also from the get-go as a 80386/32bit project (while 
Minix at that time was only 16bit, 80286 code), using an early version 
of GCC instead of the ACK (Amsterdam Compiler Kit) C compiler used and 
bundled with the Minix floppy disks...
Got a copy of Linux v0.12, on 3 720K 3.5" floppy disks from an intern at 
the company I was working at at that time after I had brought those 
Minix disks to work a few days earlier.

Ralf




---
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software.
https://www.avast.com/antivirus


--
Site24x7 APM Insight: Get Deep Visibility into Application Performance
APM + Mobile APM + RUM: Monitor 3 App instances at just $35/Month
Monitor end-to-end web transactions and take corrective actions now
Troubleshoot faster and improve end-user experience. Signup Now!
http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=267308311=/4140
___
Freedos-user mailing list
Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user