STUDENT WRITES FREE VERSION OF DOS

Mark Olson

12/1/1994

With the help of people from around the world, a UW-River Falls
physics student is writing a free version of a computer operating
software.

Senior Jim Hall formed the international group intending to improve
the functioning of DOS, or Disk Operating System, while charging no
fee.

"I thought it would be something interesting to do," Hall said. "It
turns out that it was a lot of fun."

Hall began the project when he noticed there was a high demand for a
free version of DOS, the workhorse of a computer.

"Nobody had done it for several months, so I decided to do it myself,"
he said.
[Note - this refers to several postings I monitored on the DOS
newsgroups where people kept asking if there was a free DOS
initiative, akin to Linux or the FSF. No one seemed to be working on a
free DOS, so that's when I started FreeDOS. -jh]

When Hall and his global partners are finished with their version of
DOS, computer programs such as WordPerfect and Lotus will be able to
do more work.
[Note - I actually said that we might one day make a multitasking DOS,
which would allow the user to do more work. -jh]

The group has already written three-fourths of all the programs that
come with DOS. Hall has written half of those himself.

Through the user of email on the Internet, Hall has been able to
collaborate with people from all parts of the world to work on the
project.

"We all coordinate before we write programs," Hall said. "We discuss
what the program is going to do. The person [maintainer] then goes
ahead and starts working on the program."

Programmers from New Zealand, Israel, and Germany are all part of
Hall's international effort.

"It's nice to be able to get people from all areas of the globe to
work on a project like this," Hall said.

The computer programmers distribute their free work at File Transfer
Protocol (FTP) in North Carolina. Internet allows people to access FTP
and receive all of the free programs.

Hall's project does not violate any copyright laws.

"People have written copies of DOS programs for years," he said. "We
are starting from scratch and writing our own programs."

The programmers have received some media attention for their work. The
fact that a free version of DOS never existed until Hall's
international team tackled the project makes for an interesting
story.
[Then the writer makes a huge leap here and suggests that two major
computer trade mags are writing stories about FreeDOS. They were only
considering doing articles. The articles never happened. -jh]

While many in the computer world praise their efforts, Hall's group
has also received some criticism about the project. Employees at
Microsoft Corporation, a giant in the computer programming industry,
have written their displeasures about the free version of DOS on
USENET News, a computer forum on Internet that allows computer
operators to communicate with one another.
[This is true - there was at least 1 posting from microsoft.com
claiming that the FreeDOS Project was a stupid idea in the age of
Windows. I also received some email at the time from microsoft.com
that said similar things, although less nice. -jh]

"People who work there [Microsoft] have tried to convince me that this
is not a worthwhile project," Hall said. "It's interesting that people
at Microsoft are taking notice of this free project."

>> Reprinted from UW-RF Student Voice