DOS ain't dead

> (from news://comp.os.msdos.djgpp):
>
> <OT>
> Rugxulo, I know I need to get an email account and get on "DOS
> ain't dead forums"... But, until then, could you do me another
> favor and let Japheth know I posted a patch for HIMEMX to
> comp.os.msdos.programmer? It supports multiple 001 E820h memory
> blocks above 1MB. If you recall, you posted a message or two there
> for me previously discussing the issue.
>
> If you do, thanks and sorry for the trouble...
> <eOT>
>
> Rod Pemberton

Himemx patch for proper E820h 001 memory block support.

> PS. The main reason I'm posting this is so Japheth or Devore can
> test it and add it to the versions on his website. If you have

The problem is: I cannot test because I have no hardware with multiple blocks.

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MS-DOS forever!

> The problem is: I cannot test because I have no hardware with multiple
> blocks.

Even Rod P. can't test such a machine until maybe later this fall. And I certainly have no clue whether my machines would support it or not. (I'm not a systems programmer, as you well know.)

BTW, I noticed that this is dual GPL / Artistic. Who even owns the copyright, Tom? (He still reads here sometimes, right?) Man, I hate licensing, but just FYI, apparently the "original" 1.0 version is considered "non-free" by the FSF. I know it's pointless, but I would recommend explicitly updating to newer version (Clarified? 2.0?).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artistic_License
http://opensource.org/licenses/Artistic-1.0

> BTW, I noticed that this is dual GPL / Artistic. Who even owns the
> copyright, Tom?
good question, but not important enough to waste too much time ;)

>(He still reads here sometimes, right?)
right

> Man, I hate
> licensing, but just FYI, apparently the "original" 1.0 version is
> considered "non-free" by the FSF. I know it's pointless, but I would
> recommend explicitly updating to newer version (Clarified? 2.0?).
this would require reading, understanding, discussing (asking a lawyer?)
about the terms of the modified license terms.
what a waste of my (and everybody else's) time

> > BTW, I noticed that this is dual GPL / Artistic. Who even owns the
> > copyright, Tom?
>
> good question, but not important enough to waste too much time ;)

I hate licensing bullcrap, but what good is helping a project that is rejected by the whole world due to silly things like this?

Jim Hall has made it clear that his goal is to have a totally free/libre (four freedoms) "BASE" in FreeDOS. That makes sense for distribution. It's actually pretty close (mostly because almost everything is GPL) but not quite. You may not explicitly care, but as far as sharing, mirroring, or attracting developers (who in modern times are overwhelmingly Linux-biased), it's unavoidable.

And yes, I know huge modifications or related problems at this late date are unlikely, but for clarity, I felt I should mention it.

> > Man, I hate
> > licensing, but just FYI, apparently the "original" 1.0 version is
> > considered "non-free" by the FSF. I know it's pointless, but I would
> > recommend explicitly updating to newer version (Clarified? 2.0?).
>
> this would require reading, understanding, discussing (asking a lawyer?)
> about the terms of the modified license terms.

Why, did you do that for the original?? I'm assuming the FSF's website reflects their own legal attempts, hence if they suggest Clarified is better than 1.0 ("too vague"), it's fair to assume that it is not just hyperbole.

> what a waste of my (and everybody else's) time

Yes, licensing is always a waste of time (IMHO). Nevertheless, because I feel the need to at least "try" to reasonably comply, here's my findings. Feel free to ignore, but at least I tried.

HIMEMX is listed as having three copyright holders: you, Devore, and Japheth. (EDIT: While not listed in the "Author" field, it does also mention Till Gerkin. I should probably fix that.) Japheth (not a maintainer!) says his mods are p.d. (not that such is fully accepted everywhere, Japan??). Devore seems to use Artistic 1.0 in his NoMySo, so presumably he prefers that. But FSF (unlike OSI, yet again) claims 1.0 is too vague and thus non-free. They recommend Clarified (which is almost the same license) or the much newer (but almost twice as complicated) Artistic 2.0. Well, even OSI recommends 2.0 these days. BTW, the whole "dual GPL or Artistic" doesn't seem fully explicit as nowhere can I see any explicit mention of which GPL (v2 only? v2 or newer? v3 or newer?), only LICENSE.TXT (Artistic 1.0), and there is no COPYING nor COPYING3.

I've even discovered that JEMM386 has the same three authors, but there the license seems to be only Artistic 1.0 (and not, as the .LSM erroneously said, 2.0). Oops, I take it back, that is indeed dually licensed (but there is no explicit option for listing dual license in the .LSM backend online, and it only includes Artistic 2.0). Here the .ZIP does include GNU_GPL.TXT (v2, but only? and/or later?) and ARTISTIC.TXT (1.0).

So all it takes (yet again) is one minor nit to prevent people from mirroring (in part or whole) or using even the "BASE" of FreeDOS. Though if you (copyright holder) don't care, I don't see how I can either.


# wc -lwc artistic.*
  112   767  5078 artistic.1
  136  1021  6511 artistic.cla
  172  1368  8655 artistic.2


> I've even discovered that JEMM386 has the same three authors, but there the
> license seems to be only Artistic 1.0 (and not, as the .LSM erroneously
> said, 2.0). Oops, I take it back, that is indeed dually licensed (but there
> is no explicit option for listing dual license in the .LSM backend online,
> and it only includes Artistic 2.0). Here the .ZIP does include GNU_GPL.TXT
> (v2, but only? and/or later?) and ARTISTIC.TXT (1.0).

I may be wrong about this, Japheth or you will have to clarify. It seems JEMM itself is Artistic 1.0 but the plugins may be GPL v2.

> I may be wrong about this, Japheth or you will have to clarify. It seems
> JEMM itself is Artistic 1.0 but the plugins may be GPL v2.

Changes by Devore and me are both PD. It's mentioned in the source.

The "artistic" guy is Tom.

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MS-DOS forever!

> Himemx patch for proper E820h 001 memory block support.

Rod P. has gone ahead and made a full .ZIP of .EXE and sources and everything for easier testing: himem334

> Rod P. has gone ahead and made a full .ZIP of .EXE and sources and
> everything for easier testing:
> himem334

Does it also include the 386SX patch? Unfortunatelly I cannot more test on Gigabyte MB with mem holes.

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DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

I've written a small device driver that emulates a hole in Int 15h, ax=e820:

http://www.japheth.de/Download/DOS/i15e280.zip

So you can test Rod's version even if your machine is "clean".

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MS-DOS forever!

I tested the modified himemx and jack's xmgr with the "hole"-emulator - both work as "advertised". More exactly: both are able to use at least 2 free extended memory blocks.

I also tried MS Himem.sys ( from Win98SE ). Result: it somehow manages to circumvent the emulator - although I did set DOS=NOAUTO in config.sys!!

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MS-DOS forever!