DOS ain't dead

no FPC Go32v2 maintainer(s) / Unicode kills us all (Announce)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 01.01.2011, 14:03

> Well, this is the whole point about the current dos releases. Everybody
> wants to help or give expert advice, and nobody wants to be responsible.
> (either lacking motivation or skill)

It's not that I don't WANT to help, I'm vaguely willing, but I don't know (and doubt) whether FPC devs give a crap about DOS or are even willing to cooperate with me. Repackaging newer tools is an easy job, but I'm not sure anybody will go for it. I've done it before for other projects and still been ignored. So I wonder whether it's worth it or even possible at all.

(freepascal.org's "Contact" doesn't even list Tomas' email, and I'd bet some of those are outdated anyways. Should I try to email Pierre? I seriously doubt he cares what I think, esp. if even you don't.)

> Slowly, win9x is getting in the same category. There is currently some
> discussion going on about killing off win9x. Or more precisely, just work
> if it is NT only, and see if win9x+MSLU will eat it.

RAR 4.x has already killed off Win9x (and also DOS) for the same reason. But last I heard MSLU was a crappy license (thanks for nothing, MS) and Mozilla's (?) reimplementation was only half-baked at best. Anyways, I don't have any Win9x machines to test (and dunno where that one of my brother's is).

> The amount of unicode usage is greatly increasing (driven by Lazarus'
> decision to consider every string utf-8), and the constant win9x hacks are
> getting annoying.

It's a losing battle. It's easier to drop support, deprecate, delete than keep afloat. And like I said, RAR dropped DOS too (though still sells "old" version 3.93, for now), so I hope FPC doesn't do the same. (RAR apparently now supports Win32, Win64, Linux32, Linux64, Mac OS X, FreeBSD.) All anybody cares about is Windows and/or POSIX (read: usually Linux only) at most!, very sad. If we can't all get along, what good are we? (Obviously not very.)

Complete thread:

• FPC 2.4.2RC1 - marcov, 15.10.2010, 23:25 (Announce)
  • FPC 2.4.2RC1 - Rugxulo, 16.10.2010, 04:28
    • FPC 2.4.2RC1 - marcov, 18.10.2010, 20:32
      • FPC 2.4.2RC1 - Rugxulo, 18.10.2010, 23:36
        • FPC 2.4.2RC1 -- DJGPP Binutils - Rugxulo, 19.10.2010, 09:46
          • GPL source hosting requirement - ecm, 19.10.2010, 14:27
            • GPL source hosting requirement - Rugxulo, 19.10.2010, 22:33
              • GPL source hosting requirement - ecm, 19.10.2010, 22:57
                • GPL source hosting requirement - Rugxulo, 20.10.2010, 00:35
                  • GPL source hosting requirement - ecm, 20.10.2010, 00:40
            • GPL source hosting requirement - marcov, 20.10.2010, 09:47
              • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - Rugxulo, 21.10.2010, 15:47
                • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - Rugxulo, 21.10.2010, 16:36
                  • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - Rugxulo, 22.10.2010, 05:14
                    • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - DOS386, 23.10.2010, 09:21
                      • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - Rugxulo, 23.10.2010, 10:16
                • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - marcov, 18.11.2010, 21:15
                  • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - Rugxulo, 19.11.2010, 15:05
                    • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - marcov, 22.11.2010, 15:23
                      • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - Rugxulo, 23.11.2010, 00:29
                        • LZMA SDK 4.42 for FPC - marcov, 25.11.2010, 11:55
                          • AdvanceZip / FBC BinUtils / CMT Solitaire - Rugxulo, 25.12.2010, 12:39
                            • AdvanceZip / BinUtils / CMT Solitaire / DOS DEATH / LZMA - DOS386, 26.12.2010, 08:04
                            • AdvanceZip / FBC BinUtils / CMT Solitaire - marcov, 01.01.2011, 00:40
                              • AdvanceZip / FBC BinUtils / CMT Solitaire - Rugxulo, 01.01.2011, 05:47
                                • AdvanceZip / FBC BinUtils / CMT Solitaire - marcov, 01.01.2011, 13:02
                                  • no FPC Go32v2 maintainer(s) / Unicode kills us all - Rugxulo, 01.01.2011, 14:03
                                    • no FPC Go32v2 maintainer(s) / Unicode kills us all - Laaca, 01.01.2011, 15:12
                                      • no FPC Go32v2 maintainer(s) / Unicode kills us all - marcov, 01.01.2011, 16:56
                                    • no FPC Go32v2 maintainer(s) / Unicode kills us all - marcov, 01.01.2011, 17:46
                                      • no FPC Go32v2 maintainer(s) / Unicode kills us all - Rugxulo, 03.01.2011, 09:44
                                        • BUG - DOS386, 08.03.2011, 14:37
                                          • BUG - FPC 2.5.1 snapshot - Rugxulo, 08.03.2011, 22:40
                                          • BUG - Japheth, 10.03.2011, 12:17
                                          • BUG - Laaca, 10.03.2011, 12:31
                                            • BUG - DOS386, 03.05.2011, 09:48
        • UPX-UCL 3.07 - Rugxulo, 20.10.2010, 03:44
        • FPC 2.4.2RC1 - marcov, 04.11.2010, 09:49
          • FPC 2.4.2RC1 - Rugxulo, 08.11.2010, 22:27
            • FPC 2.4.2RC1 - marcov, 10.11.2010, 20:38
              • FPC 2.4.2RC1 - Laaca, 11.11.2010, 00:06
              • FPC 2.4.2RC1 - Rugxulo, 11.11.2010, 04:03
              • FPC 2.4.2 (final) released - Rugxulo, 14.11.2010, 20:11
                • "for .. in" - Rugxulo, 24.11.2010, 01:08
          • CWSDPMI r5 vs. r7 (paq8o8z) - Rugxulo, 15.11.2010, 22:36
            • CWSDPMI r5 vs. r7 (paq8o8z) - marcov, 18.11.2010, 21:13
              • CWSDPMI r5 vs. r7 (paq8o8z) - Laaca, 19.11.2010, 11:10
                • CWSDPMI r5 vs. r7 (paq8o8z) - Rugxulo, 19.11.2010, 14:52
                  • CWSDPMI r5 vs. r7 (paq8o8z) - marcov, 22.11.2010, 13:00
                    • CWSDPMI r5 vs. r7 (paq8o8z) - ecm, 22.11.2010, 14:43
                      • CWSDPMI r5 vs. r7 (paq8o8z) - marcov, 22.11.2010, 15:21
                        • CWSDPMI r5 vs. r7 (paq8o8z) - ecm, 22.11.2010, 16:08
                          • CWSDPMI r7 for FPC - Rugxulo, 23.11.2010, 00:03