Kamel Belgacem wrote:

> Hi Jim, I hope you remember me,
> I have sent to you an email but no answers were in my
> basket ! Any way, may be they sent it anywhere else !
>
> Jim, we started a new group "LibertySoft", and Richard
> Stallman welcomed our project with happiness. I'm
> responsible of FreeDOS projects in the group and I
> want to include an interview with you in our 3rd
> magazine release. So, could you help me ?
>
> - Could you give us some infos about you ?


I'm the founder and "coordinator" of the FreeDOS Project
<http://www.freedos.org/>.  I started the FreeDOS Project back in
1994, when I was a physics student at the University of Wisconsin-
River Falls.  A complete history of how the FreeDOS Project came to be
is at <http://www.freedos.org/freedos/about/>, including some very
interesting links to the USENET archive on Google.

Most of my time with FreeDOS is spent doing "administrative" things:
updating the web site, helping people with the mailing list, answering
questions (and doing interviews!) ... things like that.  I rarely have
time to write actual code anymore, though.  I think that is the risk
you take when you become a "coordinator" for a project like FreeDOS.
After the project reaches a certain size, you have less time to write
code because you're doing all these things to help keep the project
moving.

I see my role within FreeDOS as helping to build a community.  I'm all
about the community: how to keep information flowing, encouraging DOS
programs to become Free software (for example, GPL), how to make
FreeDOS more accessible.  I think that's why I spend the most time
working on the web site; it's the first place you go when you need to
find out information about the FreeDOS community.

Outside of FreeDOS, I'm a manager at the University of Minnesota.  I
work in the Central Computing Operations group, part of the Office of
Information Technology.  I manage the different "systems
administration" groups for CCO, including: Linux, AIX, Solaris,
Windows, and Novell.

I'm also married, and we have 3 cats ("Linus", "Murphy" and "Vita".)


> - How do you find free software ?


I prefer using Free and "open source" software over commercial,
"closed source" software.  However, I do sometimes use commercial
("non-free") software, whatever is best suited to the task.

For example, my wife and I only run Linux at home.  We don't have
Windows or MacOS running on any of our personal computers.  At work, I
am fortunate enough to work for an organization that doesn't mind me
dual-booting my work laptop with both Linux and Windows.  (I think I
boot into Windows about once a month, to do the one or two odd tasks
that I can't do under Linux.)

I also boot into FreeDOS, using Linux DOSEmu.  Mostly, I use FreeDOS
to write DOS programs and to play DOS games.  I still enjoy a few of
those old DOS games.


> - What about networking, multi-tasking and multi-use
> in FreeDOS project ?


Networking is definitely possible, and there are many DOS programs
that include support for networking.  The Arachne web browser is a
good example.  However, I don't we'll ever have a networking (i.e.,
TCP/IP) subsystem in FreeDOS like you have in other operating systems
like UNIX, and each .  DOS just wasn't designed that way.

Multitasking is possible in FreeDOS, but it wasn't one of our goals,
so the "core" effort in the FreeDOS Project will not work on
this. Certainly, multitasking in DOS has been achieved in the past by
third-party vendors.

Multi-user under DOS will be a lot harder.  This means you have to
support concepts like permissions and username/password.  I think this
is well beyond the original intent of DOS, and certainly beyond the
scope of the FreeDOS Project.


> - Do you thing any one will bring KDE or Gnome to our
> free OS ?


I don't know that KDE or GNOME will ever come to FreeDOS, but there
are other GUI interfaces to DOS.  I think the concept of a GUI for DOS
has been around since the IBM PC first introduced a graphics adapter.

There are a few GUIs for FreeDOS that are quite popular:

The OpenGEM project is quite good.  If you're familiar with "TOS" on
the Atari ST computer, or with the graphical "shell" under DR-DOS,
then you will feel right at home with OpenGEM.

The SEAL project has a much prettier interface, but is currently
stalled.  I understand that a new maintainer for that project has just
taken up the reins, so I hope development picks up again.


> - Do you think that FreeDOS will rich Linux one day ?
> How will that happens ?


I'm not entirely sure what you're asking here, but I'll give it a shot
anyway:

I don't know that FreeDOS will reach the level of popularity that
Linux currently enjoys.  FreeDOS serves a niche market- mostly the
embedded systems users, systems developers, hobbyists, and those that
need or prefer to use old DOS programs&games.


> - Do you have any piece of advice to give to our club,
> my boss ?


Just this: I encourage everyone to contribute to Free or "open source"
software projects.  It doesn't matter whether or not you can write
code; not everyone contributes to software projects by coding.  You
may write documentation, help create or maintain a web site, provide a
translation for a program (many programs will now support multiple
languages), or do any number of helpful activities that support your
favorite software project.  Remember, we need your help to become
successful.



>
> Thank you Jim, I'm not going to tell you about what we
> are preparing (suprise !), but there's a new distrib
> in many versions, and a new event for the 1st time in
> Northern Africa, and may be FreeDOS will be a part of
> it. So, if you have a picture of you, you can send it
> to me..
>
> Please send me your reply to bekasoft@yahoo.fr, our
> standard mail is libertysoft@linuxmail.org and soon
> the website will be there (with Zope).
>
> -kim