DOS ain't dead - Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23

Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 (Announce)

posted by Rugxulo , Usono, 12.02.2011, 02:10
(edited by Rugxulo on 12.02.2011, 02:22)

> Not surprisingly, Dunfield's MICRO-C (and other tools) went out of
> business, and the complete package for the latest compiler version may be
> downloaded from here: http://www.dunfield.com/doswid/index.htm.
> Time for rr to update the links.

I don't know what happened. Not sure he really went out of business, just switched to consulting. IIRC, he already allowed the "lite" version (no srcs) as freeware but never bundled (as separate .ZIP) anything newer than 3.21. In other words, I had emailed him and he said the "lite" version of 3.23 was freeware (which email I then forwarded to rr about two or three years ago). He was charging $25 for the "full" version, last I checked, among other target versions (non-x86 embedded processors).

Yes, he started posting on comp.os.msdos.programmer recently, which is how I also noticed he had "free"'d the compiler, but I never bothered trying it, it was too raw for me. I just wasn't comfortable with it. It's a very nice toolset for tiny things, but it's kinda limited in abilities. (In other words, it doesn't even half replace OpenWatcom 16-bit support.)

From what I've read, at one time he was offering the full suite (with sources) to FreeDOS gratis, for redistribution, but he wanted control over it. He didn't want the .ZIP to be modified without his permission, and he wanted the ability to change files without notice. (Please don't get mad at Jim Hall here.) Jim is a GPL zealot, seriously, he's (semi-correctly) obsessed with the "four freedoms", mainly so that nothing comes back to bite him or us. Well, no surprise, since these restrictions weren't GPL friendly, Jim just turned Micro-C away. (Though an older version with sources is still on iBiblio, oddly enough, but mostly because nobody complained, very very few FTP admins exist, nobody keeps those files up, etc.)

Very very few FreeDOS things use Micro-C anyways, maybe something old by Stefan Kaiser, but I forget exactly.

Yeah, I'm honestly NOT trying to stir up anything here, just offering a few (boring) facts for completeness. :-/

EDIT: For the record, being included in FreeDOS proper isn't the same as mirroring on iBiblio. So Jim has indeed thrown lots of stuff on iBiblio that isn't quite GPL friendly. But the true FreeDOS, esp. "BASE", he has been very protective of. (He got promoted at work, got his masters??, moved, but now two years later he's barely back rewriting the installer. I think Pat's still in charge, though, but he's swamped with work, like most [except me]. I haven't really heard any important plans lately, but I'm not exactly the most important person, to say the least.)

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Complete thread:

Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - Khusraw, 10.02.2011, 15:14 (Announce)
- Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - RayeR, 10.02.2011, 16:21
- Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - rr, 10.02.2011, 22:47
- Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - Rugxulo, 12.02.2011, 02:10
  - Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - ecm, 12.02.2011, 13:00
    - Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - Rugxulo, 12.02.2011, 20:48
    - Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - marcov, 14.02.2011, 11:04
  - Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - dave11, 02.03.2011, 00:01
    - Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - Rugxulo, 02.03.2011, 01:09
- Dunfield MICRO-C 3.23 - roytam, 26.02.2015, 04:43