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Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

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Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#201
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS-DOS is maybe the ugliest operating system I ever had the displeasure of using. There's very little to learn from operating system design point of view in there, and better sources are available under more permissive licenses -- ie open source licenses. It looks like a PR stunt to me.

'Operating system' is stretching it. 'Disk Operating System' is one of those phrases like 'ice creme' that implies 'ice cream'. MS-DOS was a program that wrote stuff to disk for you, read the keyboard for you, listened to interrupts for things and showed useful error messages such as 'Retry, Fail or Abort?'. There was no networking to speak of, certainly not TCP/IP as we know it, no user permission things, you couldn…

> All of this normal stuff that an Operating System does was well established ... to a certain extent, on the BBC Micro.

The BBC micro's operating system had no networking to speak of, certainly not TCP/IP as we know it, no user permission things (indeed, no concept of users at all), and no cron jobs (indeed, no OS scheduling of tasks at all). In other words, not one of the things you specifically called out as "normal stuff that an Operating System does".

(There was a networking system, called Econet, but it wasn't part of the base OS; you needed an extra ROM -- physically plugged into the circuit board, those were the days -- that implemented it.)

For the avoidance of doubt: I loved the Acorn MOS and hated MS-DOS. But it simply isn't true that the BBC Micro had those features and MS-DOS didn't. And, for what it's worth, I see nothing wrong with calling either of them an operating system.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is MS-DOS even patented ? As far as I remember, software patents were not granted until fairly recently in History (usually from the 90s).

Oldest patent I see that looks like it could be for MS-DOS is #4,779,187, "Method and operating system for executing programs in a multi-mode microprocessor", which was issued in October 1988. That wouldn't apply to DOS 2.0, of course. The bigger concern would be copyright. That might be a fairly plausible argument for why FreeDOS developers shouldn't be reading this source. Though realistically the odds that Microso…

I would call the odds "beyond remote."

The chance that you are going to get MSDOS expressive structures in FreeDOS in a way that is even arguably beyond deminimis is nil. You don't usually just move code between implementations easily, and chances are pretty good that the FreeDOS folks use fairly different approaches than the MSDOS folks. The argument is that if you read the code you might be tainted, but I don't see this as a significant argument here for software that's 30 years old.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#203
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, so reading it closely, it's kind of like the GPL in that any derivative work is licensed under the same license, but unlike the GPL, Microsoft get full rights to any modifications you make and any comments you make, including if you send them mail marked "confidential", plus you cannot sue anybody using this software for patent infringement if you discovered it via reading the source code. Basically, if you…

So, answering the question opened in another thread, if FreeDOS developers read the code, they risk making Microsoft the owner of their future contributions.

> So, answering the question opened in another thread, if FreeDOS developers read the code, they risk making Microsoft the owner of their future contributions.

This is a really serious issue, because we can be reasonably certain that Microsoft wants to release a new version of DOS in the reasonably near future and so this is a sinister plot to get a nonexclusive license to FreeDOS so they can charge licensing fees. Quite ingenious.....

[/sarcasm]

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, answering the question opened in another thread, if FreeDOS developers read the code, they risk making Microsoft the owner of their future contributions.

> So, answering the question opened in another thread, if FreeDOS developers read the code, they risk making Microsoft the owner of their future contributions. This is a really serious issue, because we can be reasonably certain that Microsoft wants to release a new version of DOS in the reasonably near future and so this is a sinister plot to get a nonexclusive license to FreeDOS so they can charge licensing fees. Q…

I would think Microsoft takes the FAT module of the Linux kernel very seriously. The way to store long file names as multiple directory entries is one of the patents Microsoft uses as its main mobile revenue driver (they get more money out of Android licenses than they get from Windows Phone sales).

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, answering the question opened in another thread, if FreeDOS developers read the code, they risk making Microsoft the owner of their future contributions. This is a really serious issue, because we can be reasonably certain that Microsoft wants to release a new version of DOS in the reasonably near future and so this is a sinister plot to get a nonexclusive license to FreeDOS so they can charge licensing fees. Q…

I would think Microsoft takes the FAT module of the Linux kernel very seriously. The way to store long file names as multiple directory entries is one of the patents Microsoft uses as its main mobile revenue driver (they get more money out of Android licenses than they get from Windows Phone sales).

I don't think long file names were supported in DOS 2.0

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#206
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS-DOS is maybe the ugliest operating system I ever had the displeasure of using. There's very little to learn from operating system design point of view in there, and better sources are available under more permissive licenses -- ie open source licenses. It looks like a PR stunt to me.

'Operating system' is stretching it. 'Disk Operating System' is one of those phrases like 'ice creme' that implies 'ice cream'. MS-DOS was a program that wrote stuff to disk for you, read the keyboard for you, listened to interrupts for things and showed useful error messages such as 'Retry, Fail or Abort?'. There was no networking to speak of, certainly not TCP/IP as we know it, no user permission things, you couldn…

Too bad newer developers can’t fathom what a game changer MSDOS was back in the day.

I downloaded and dorked around with the code out of respect for what it did to PC’s 30 years ago. It’s interesting, I thought the codebase would be much larger than it is.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#208
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally everything on HN is an opportunity for another Haskell advertisement.

I won't disagree, but I realized that even before I got a computer, Haskell was officially born. It baffles me that this very advanced gem was already there, yet so few knew. http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/l-veh5m82f5jultw.jpg

To this day still few know...

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oldest patent I see that looks like it could be for MS-DOS is #4,779,187, "Method and operating system for executing programs in a multi-mode microprocessor", which was issued in October 1988. That wouldn't apply to DOS 2.0, of course. The bigger concern would be copyright. That might be a fairly plausible argument for why FreeDOS developers shouldn't be reading this source. Though realistically the odds that Microso…

Issue date is not the only relevant date - patents get extensions and expand in scope. I would imagine the FAT patent that Microsoft uses to get some revenue from every SD card sold comes from the dawn of personal computing.

Most of the FAT patents of the '90's finally expired in November.

Now exFAT is much more recently encumbered.

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