Slashdot Mirror

This just makes me miss DR-DOS...

Why?

Proprietary DR-DOS version
Open Source DR-DOS/OpenDOS version

This is 2012. Any OS that costs money should have wifi support.

How nice that you think so...

http://drdos.com/products/dr-dos/

http://www.ecomstation.com/ does have limited WiFi support -- there's a number of old 802.11b chipsets supported. So maybe that doesn't count, but I'd hardly call that acceptable in 2012 -- FOR GENERAL-PURPOSE OSES FOR NEW HARDWARE.

Unfortunately for you, your thoughts != reality. Y'know, reality, where real businesses need to (or find it cheaper to) run real legacy apps from pre-WiFi times, in the same non-WiFi use cases for which the apps were originally developed. Where "OS for legacy apps" is a real thing, and has different requirements than for new desktop OSes.

Can you not conceive that the OS market is not one giant mass of identical requirements? If you can, why do you think WiFi should be the one thing that transcends such divisions? And no "because I say so", which is all I've heard from you so far, isn't a good answer.

What M$ is *actually* doing is **FINALLY** ditching the MS-DOS that has been secretly running under each version of Windows since the beginning (like the over-worked hamster family secretly hidden in every Prius) and they are now going to start using DR-DOS underneath it all. They are just going to pay the $25,000 Buy Out cost for DR-DOS and be done with it all once and for all. Obviously, ^THAT^ is where all the incompatibilities will stem from...

On the DR-DOS website, on this page : http://www.drdos.com/products/drdos81.htm

Compare this page to the Google cached version:

http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:7Tlnhc5cJbEJ:w ww.drdos.com/products/drdos80.htm+&hl=en&lr=&strip =0

The difference is that now it says:

Portions are licensed under GPL (SYS v2.6 and FDXXMS v.92) or other licenses.

1) OpenDOS was licensed using something entirely incompatible with the GPL.

2) Yes, he (Udo Kuhnt) modified the source code, but was bound by the Caldera license. See also the opinion of Pat Villani, the original FreeDOS kernel developer
here
It is not possible to relicense something GPL-incompatible as GPL without permission of all copyright holders.

3) Yes

4) Yes, and they are able to do so (snatching) because their license allows them to do so. "stolen", as used on the freedos site is not the right word to use IMHO, because Udo Kuhnt could read in the OpenDOS license that this was possible.

5) This is about two utilities only (only these and not the kernel are GPL), and well it looks like DRDOS Inc has done something about it here: "Portions are licensed under GPL (SYS v2.6 and FDXXMS v.92) or other licenses."

Yup, it sure is. The OP is talking about the header on the DR-DOS website, and the wallpaper Latticework at the bottom of this page on Digital Blasphemy, a commercial wallpaper site. Looks like they just ripped the pic straight from the sample size... didn't even buy the full thing. They did mess around with the colours, but it's clearly the same thing. Disgusting.

They have a Dell logo on their customer page so they must sell them something: http://www.drdos.com/customers/index.htm

Yeah, I just looked and couldn't find any DrDos PCs in Dell's online catalog either. Who knows. Maybe they just do consulting for Dell.

Having looked at the DR-DOS pages, there's a link to "Source Code" (here).

"Email sales@drdos.com" regarding source code so the site says. However, if there's no GPL file included then it'd be a breach.

Additionally, from TFA, it'd be interesting to see whether the distribution breaks the terms of the two shareware products that have apparently been included. (Ranish Partition Manager 2.44 & PKZIP 2.04g by PKWARE)

...http://www.drdos.com/products/sourcecode.htm

???

What's the issue? Remember: GPL sez: "If I give you binaries, I have to give you code. If I give you code, I can't stop you from giving other people the code."

For the license illiterate out there:

    Microsoft.com: Sells you "GPL FireFox" for $100.

    CrazyUnixHippie: Buys "GPL FireFox", requests source code.

    CrazyUnixHippie: sets up CrazyUnixHippie.org and gives away source / binaries.

Until #2 happens, don't worry that #3 hasn't happened yet. Please don't pick on my incorrect use of Trademarks in an example about GPL rights, don't confuse the fledgeling hackers out there.

--Robert

Well, it looks like DrDOS is still live and kicking and still being sold for 25 bucks.

URL here:
http://www.drdos.com/products/buyout.htm?rnd=10796 33491511

AFAIK, DOS is mostly used in embedded solutions nowadays, but there it's pretty popular due to its simplicity and implied stability (less features -> less bugs).

Given the number of hacker-level jobs that WILL be disappearing, would be to write Distributed Redundant Denial Of Service Attack Bots

But isn't the initialism DRDOS taken?

Actually, Caldera DOS (now renamed back to DR-DOS) is now independent of SCO and still available.

There have been reports that Microsoft created incompatibilities in Windows to prevent DRDos from running in the back-end.

In the case of Netscape it was the fact that IE could be leveraged across Microsoft's huge installed base by being bundled with Windows.

Real started out well but I agree they are the victims of their own crappy business practices. Still Microsoft has leveraged their monopoly over the desktop to promote their Media Player.

Caldera as a company was founded with the sole purpose of suing Microsoft over DR-DOS.

Unless you have insider evidence that proves otherwise, that's simply not true. Caldera was founded in 1994 by the programmers who were working on Novell's original Linux product in the early '90s, which Ray Noorda wanted to bundle with DR-DOS and make a "Windows 95 killer" before Windows 95 got to market. Infoworld did a fair amount of reporting on this back in the day, referring to it as "the Corsair Project." Caldera's original web site talked about this project originally, and had internal logos that they were using for the project, although they were referring to it as "Expose." When Noorda was forced out and the project was canned, the programmers took what they could and built a Linux distribution from it.

Caldera acquired DR-DOS in 1996 from Novell, and Novell had already laid out the groundwork for the litigation, which they had chosen not to pursue. Caldera did pursue it, and frankly, they were right to. At the time, I can assure you the general feeling on Slashdot was, "Yeah! You go!" Seven or eight years ago, these were the good guys. Caldera certainly wasn't sitting around and waiting for a big payoff, though--they were actively developing both Caldera Network Desktop and embedded systems based on Linux and DR-DOS.

Last but not least, what you really must remember is that the current SCO Group has no executives, no products--and quite possibly no employees at all--in common with Caldera Systems. For all practical purposes, they're a completely different company.

The 3 main guys who were maintaining DRDOS bought DRDOS from the Canopy Group and split out on their own. I bought a licensed copy from them recently, for $30. While freedos is coming along, DRDOS is much better in many ways -- the task switcher which operates like virtual terminals in Linux, is extremely useful.

Actually, DR-DOS isn't as dead as you imply; it's quite a serious player in the embedded systems market of all things. Not too big on the "updated website" business though - check out the date on the press release, bottom right. ;)

What makes that even more funny is that Caldera really did used to own DOS (DR DOS to be precise), but the assets went to Lineo during a coorporate re-org, and from there to DeviceLogics. Some details here and some more here. Embedded DOS? Jeez, and I thought WinCE was bad!

If you really want to get away from that wimpy GUI-ness what you need is a real operating system. ;-)

Personally I consider Mandrake's gui configuration stuff less of a problem and more of a time saver.

Extra Time=Fun mmmmm fun.

The large company method (Oracle, Borland, of course MS, etc) is probably out. These people will not buy that software from you. From the point of view of the MBA's who make the decision, anything written in a couple of years by a couple of guy's can be replicated (ok, half as good) by 50 Hindi's working for 1% the price each over 4 years, and given that actual software development is like 2% of the company's cost, the uncertainties of buying someone else's software (look at all the time MS has bought software that turned out to be pirated or under the BSD license), they just won't do it. These MBAs veiw you and and anything associated with you as shit and won't give you the time of day.

Now look at the niche market guy, particularly the one to five person shop. In this catagory you have 4 Developers (discriptive name), ACDsee (probably as big as these class ever gets, a 40 person company), Mondo rescue (hey, it's even open source!), Device Logics (milking the last bit of money out of DRDOS with a 3 person company). Folks, as programmers, that catagory is where the money is. Those programmers keep more of what they produce than anyone else in the industry. Their products are cheap, but ultimately the future is a few biggies like Oracle and Microsoft still conning the pointy-haireds who won't buy from anyone else, and a vast class of independent shops. Society will spend less on software, but paradoxically software programmers will get more money, because the vast and oppressive corporate bureaucracies will be starved out.

Those guys will never buy our man's University written software because they can't afford enough to pay the university lawyer's hourly rate while they look over the docs and sign them.

In short, Sean is right and this software will never make money.

UNLESS . . . our man quits his academic job and re-writes this and starts selling it himself. Which is of course exactly what he should do.

Er... half-right. Caldera sued MS and won: back in the days when you had a choice of which DOS to run Windows under, Microsoft put a lot of effort into making Windows MS-DOS specific, in order to wipe out the competition. Since doing that is illegal, Caldera got a big pile of MS cash in an out-of-court settlement.

Having said that, Caldera split in two - one half was 'UNIX' things (their Linux distro, the bits of SCO, etc) and the other was DOS/embedded, so it seems the part doing the suing this time is not the half that beat MS previously... (Which, incidentally, seems to have disappeared; DR DOS has been sold to these guys.

Does anyone else see this as the end of SCO (Caldera) like I do? I certainly will never use anything from them ever again.

The good news is that you can keep on using Dr DOS, as it is now the property of DeviceLogics, Inc.. You can download it from their web site without a cash payment.

so you're saying i can go and buy ms dos6.22(or whatever was the latest) from ms and get support for it? or dr dos? freedos exists though.

To find them:

FreeDOS (GNU GPL, still under active development.)

DR-DOS (still "closed source", not sure about development future.)

If this were practical, then wine would also be practical. Wine has been trying for years to emulate (loosely speaking) the Win9X kernel, et cetera, via reverse engineering. They couldn't do it. They've made amazing strides, and done miracles, but their target was moving, and most of what they needed to know was cleverly hidden. MAybe once Win9X is dropped by MS, wine will eventually be able to catch up to it, and make a perfect-enough emulation.

Linux itself started this way, as a reverse-engineered version of Minix.

The Minix source was published, so reverse engineering was doable. There weren't any undocumented APIs. Look also at FreeDos, a libre implementation of MSDOS. Freedos had the advantage of a much simpler and stationary target. Windows 3.1 still won't run on it (that's ok, since they have other GUIs which will). Then there was DR Dos. They wrote a pretty good DOS replacement (simpler than making a new WIN NT), but MS managed to torpedo them.

The original question was:

I mean really, whats so taboo about starting with an open source kernel, binary compatible with the NT kernel, then a desktop manager and supporting apps, functionally compatible with Windows. Port all that wine nonsense over so you have compatible APIs to build from.

``Why don't we just write our own copy of Windows? It'll be, like, compatible and everything.''

I just don't think that's possible. If you can write something which runs the Reader Rabbit games without crashing (anymore than real Windows does), let me know.

Some mentioned earlier on this thread jokingly about making a super fast computer based on old architecture.

Has anyone actually done that? Has anyone actually taken say, a Tandy Color Computer 3's hardware and boosted it up to something approaching our current standards? I'm not talking emulation on a x86 platform. I mean fully working with a processor with a native OS.

Those architecture are so simple, with kernels so small you could print the hex binary out on a couple of pages. Imaging how fast an accounting package would be on a 1 gHz, or even a 200 mHz.

I know this maybe off topic, but if someone could resurrect a 12-bit system to a more modern standard, why not other system. DOS is still viable in certain circumstances, why not these platforms.

Think about an 8-bit controller with a serial connection, flash memory, and a RCA video out jack that is based on a C64. There is a TON of documentation for programming on something like that. Linux guruâ(TM)s could use C/C++ and Windows users could use Commodore BASIC.

Oh well thatâ(TM)s just my ramblings.

If Microsoft really wants to deny new DOS-licenses, this could be a real problem

No it isn't. IBM publishes proprietary PC DOS 2000, DeviceLogics publishes proprietary DR-DOS, and the free software community publishes free FreeDOS, as numerous other users have mentioned.

I have always wondered what would have happened if DR DOS wasn't eradicated by microsoft.

Actually, it hasn't been eradicated. In fact, it's back again! Check this out...

DeviceLogics

I think you mean DR-DOS.

Formally Digital Research's MS-DOS competitor.

For true near-100% MSDOS compliance, with FAT32 support, multitasking and much more more as well, you want DRDOS-7.03 here. And no, you don't want the unofficial 7.04 and 7.05 which are actually broken in some respects.

DRDOS delivers really good compatibility, because it emulates most (if not all) MSDOS flaws on purpose. The flip side is, it's not free nor is it opensource.

DISCLAIMER : I used to maintain parts of the DRDOS kernel, so I'm biased.

I believe the man you're looking for is Dr. Dos.

In this regard, these make interesting reads:

• Calderas' legal brief against MS PreAnnouncement claims
• The early history of vaporware, as discussed in a computer history mailing list archive from 1996

DR DOS.com and DR DOS.org have more information on DR DOS.
<O
( \
XGNOME vs. KDE: the game!

Do you have any links to something like a news article which would back up the claim that Microsoft announced office applications for the JavaStation? I'm trying to start a list of Microsoft's vaporware and this sounds like it would make an excellent example. So far, the best link I've found has been the Caldera court brief regarding DR DOS which does a terrific job of explaining how Microsoft uses vaporware to harm competitors at the expense of consumers, but I could use some more examples, and this JavaStation announcement sounds perfect. If you have a link to a reference on this (or any other vaporware for that matter) please email it to me or post it here. Thanks.

Officially, they claim it isn't, but they probably forgot to remove it from their ftp servers, it's still here.

A long, long time ago, Microsoft shipped MS-DOS. A separate company, Digital Research, created another operating system called 'DR-DOS'.

Now, DR-DOS was completely 100% compatible with MS-DOS, it was faster than MS-DOS, and it was cheaper. Hardware companies were starting to look at DR-DOS as a replacement for MS-DOS.

Microsoft saw a potential loss of revenue, so it posted its latest Beta of Windows 3.1 with special code: if it was running under DR-DOS, rather than MS-DOS, it would start with an error screen.

Reviewers of the time saw the error message, and strongly advised against running Windows 3.1 under DR-DOS. Hardware companies decided not to purchase DR-DOS. And, in the end, DR-DOS became nothing more than a footnote in history.

One part of the court case documentation can be found here , and the parent directory contains links to more documentation.

What does this mean to Open Windows? Simple. If they succeed in creating a system that -is- 100% Microsoft-compatible, so that people can run, say, Microsoft products... Microsoft will change the products on them, so that they are no longer compatible.

It can't be revenues ($3 million in '99) or profits ($9.4 million loss in '99).

Caldera Systems' products would appear to be proprietary Linux ports of Noorda's, I mean, Novell's successful and fast-growing Netware line plus Red Hat-based OpenLinux distro. The Lizard installer (co-developed with TrollTech) seems to have been finally open-sourced last September under TrollTech's QPL but the only reference to COAS licensing seemed to imply that the source will only be released after the administration tools are developed , whatever that means.

Offering only approximately 5% of the stock to the public is a time-tested method of increasing demand by artificially restricting supply. Ray Noorda (holding 73% after IPO) will be laughing all the way to the bank even if the IPO tanks. Even Sun, SCO, Citrix etc. got their pre-IPO shares at $6 a few months ago while TrollTech got theirs via equity swap. However the common man only "wins" if the company is really going to be worth over $1 billion in the not too distant future. Also be warned that daytraders and marketmakers (both well-known market manipulators) may quickly boost the price quite high after opening but they're also able to dump their "holdings" in a split second when the price starts heading south.

Are people even aware that this Caldera Systems, Inc. isn't the same as Caldera, Inc.? Since they took over www.caldera.com from their mother company any references to the latter have been hard to find. At least they're still proudly carrying a link to the Caldera vs. Microsoft (SETTLED!) page, even though the dough went to the old Caldera, Inc. instead. I hope that the DOJ's case will finally produce Microsoft a guilty verdict instead because it would be too painful to see Gates (unrelated tip: try searching Chairman Gates' site for "Linux") proclaiming again how Microsoft has never, ever done anything remotely naughty, how the operating system and Office suite markets are, as always, extremely competitive and how they only settled to be able to better continue innovating for their customers...

Anyways, it will be interesting to see what impact the nouveau rich Caldera Systems, Inc. will have on Red Hat's market valuation and strategies; both of these primarily server and service-oriented companies are going to be accountable for their shareholders' financial well-being. With Caldera Systems, Inc. IPO already priced above Corel's market valuation perhaps Red Hat should reconsider strengthening their position by buying out Corel (currently valued at only 10% of RHAT market cap), selling Corel's investments in other companies for cash and then creating a number of subsidiaries with their own lucrative IPO's of the Corel product lines as e.g. the WordPerfect Office Corp., the Corel Draw and Publishing Corp., the Red Corel Linux OS for desktop etc. Say what you will but competition between these Linux-based companies is going to get started.

Caldera, on their site http://www.drdos.com gives an answer as to why they settled and what they think they were achieving here

An excerpt from their Q&A page:

Q: I thought Caldera filed the case based on principals (or to change behavior), not just to collect money. What did you accomplish?

A: We actually believe that we accomplished several things during this process.

1. We led out on the recent series of investigations into Microsoft's business practices. When we filed our case in July 1996, no other private company or government agency was publicly investigating Microsoft's monopoly-related behavior. Netscape, SUN, Bristol, the DOJs recent case, and several class action suits all followed our filing.

2. We told the story. Many new facts regarding Microsoft's business conduct were made public during the lengthy pre-trial period of our case.

3. We stood up against them. We believe that our actions will have a deterring effect against future misconduct. We have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully file a lawsuit against Microsoft and have a positive result.

4. We helped to brand Linux as a legitimate competitor to Windows. Our lawsuit, combined with the governments case, helped publicize and legitimize the Linux brand. We believe that as a result of these lawsuits, Caldera Systems, Lineo and other Linux companies are stronger competitors to Microsoft, now and in the future.

Caldera, on their site http://www.drdos.com gives an answer as to why they settled and what they think they were achieving here

An excerpt from their Q&A page:

Q: I thought Caldera filed the case based on principals (or to change behavior), not just to collect money. What did you accomplish?

A: We actually believe that we accomplished several things during this process.

1. We led out on the recent series of investigations into Microsoft's business practices. When we filed our case in July 1996, no other private company or government agency was publicly investigating Microsoft's monopoly-related behavior. Netscape, SUN, Bristol, the DOJs recent case, and several class action suits all followed our filing.

2. We told the story. Many new facts regarding Microsoft's business conduct were made public during the lengthy pre-trial period of our case.

3. We stood up against them. We believe that our actions will have a deterring effect against future misconduct. We have demonstrated that it is possible to successfully file a lawsuit against Microsoft and have a positive result.

4. We helped to brand Linux as a legitimate competitor to Windows. Our lawsuit, combined with the governments case, helped publicize and legitimize the Linux brand. We believe that as a result of these lawsuits, Caldera Systems, Lineo and other Linux companies are stronger competitors to Microsoft, now and in the future.

I've been reading The Microsoft File : The Secret Case Against Bill Gates (don't buy it here!). There's some interesting tidbits about MSDOS vs DRDOS, MS vs Novell, and Bill Gates vs Ray Noorda in there (Also lots of boring bits; I give the book two stars out of five - I didn't hurl it from me, but I have to force myself to read it). Noorda was the CEO of Novell in the early 90s. He retired from Novell and founded Caldera. This article summarizes the history of Noorda and Caldera. The current CEO of Caldera is also from Novell. I'd guess that Noorda brought him over, and that he has a fair amount of personal loyalty to Noorda, his values, and his goals.

Noorda has it in for MS, and I would say deservedly so. MS proposed a merger with Novell and basically pillaged all kinds of inside business and technical information before saying "Nevermind." Novell bought DRDOS, only to have MS...well, you can read that history yourself. A couple of passages in the book indicate that Noorda felt that Bill Gates had lied to him personally.

Noorda doesn't think that MS is good for the software industry. A benign dictator can be acceptable, but an blood-crazed psychopathic tyrant is a Bad Thing (tm). De facto industry standards are fine as long as they don't come from the end of a gun.

I think that your opinion (about business plans)is tactically sound but strategically wrong. If Microsoft is taken apart - or at least taken down a few notches - there will be more opportunities for everyone in the software industry. If EVERYONE said "Our plan is to take something away from Microsoft," MS would find itself assaulted from all sides and unable to compete effectively without choosing some battles and losing some battles. Noorda is doing his part, and if everyone else would do the same, the software industry would be a different place. Better or worse, I honestly can't say, but definitely different.

What's wrong with DR-DOS or FreeDOS? FreeDOS is Free Software, and the source code to DR-DOS is available as well, and both are small and fast. An embedded OS doesn't need a lot of the complexities that make Linux useful for a desktop PC.

Depends on your uses. For many purposes, 4 MB most certainly does not qualify as a "low memory footprint." DR-DOS has a memory footprint of around 50-75KB, and can run useful programs with a total of 640KB installed RAM. Can Linux handle that?

Well, MS-DOS is a Microsoft OS that is less demanding than Linux.

Of course, you'd probably want to use DR-DOS since the source code to it is available for you to tweak.