Jim Hall (programmer)

Jim Hall is a computer programmer and advocate of free software, best known for his work on FreeDOS. Hall began writing the free replacement for the MS-DOS operating system in 1994 when he was still a physics student at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.cite web|url=http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT3952799051.html|title=The past, present, and future of the FreeDOS Project|date=2002-03-25|accessdate=2008-06-14|author=Jim Hall] He remains active with FreeDOS, and is currently the coordinator for the project.cite web| url=http://www.freedos.org/freedos/about/| year=September 23, 2006| title=History of FreeDOS|first=Jim| last=Hall| publisher=freedos.org| accessdate=2007-05-28]

Hall has said he created FreeDOS in response to Microsoft announcing end of support for MS-DOS in 1994, a year before Windows 95 was released. As a user and fan of MS-DOS, Hall did not want the functionality of DOS to go away. Prompted by a March 31, 1994 post on comp.os.msdos.misc asking if "anyone, for example GNU et al ever considered writing a Public Domain DOS", [cite newsgroup | title = GNUDOS a better DOS than DOS | author = A. Valente | date = 1994-03-31 | newsgroup = comp.os.msdos.misc | url = http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.msdos.misc/browse_thread/thread/49220e4f1514e131/d805f257cd2c1391?lnk=st&q=&rnum=42#d805f257cd2c1391 | accessdate = 2008-06-14] Hall decided to garner support for a free version of DOS, written under a free or public domain model. In a June 29, 1994 post, Hall announced an effort to create a free DOS, called PD-DOS, writing: [cite newsgroup | title = PD-DOS project *announcement* | author = James Hall | date = 1994-06-29 | newsgroup = comp.os.msdos.apps | url = http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.msdos.apps/browse_thread/thread/a10993e044dc4b35/e1bb36f1f0d1513b?lnk=st&q=&rnum=26#e1bb36f1f0d1513b | accessdate = 2008-06-14]

quotation|A few months ago, I posted articles relating to starting a publicdomain version of DOS. The general support for this at the time wasstrong, and many people agreed with the statement, "start writing!"So, I have...

Announcing the first effort to produce a PD-DOS. I have written up a"manifest" describing the goals of such a project and an outline ofthe work, as well as a "task list" that shows exactly what needs to bewritten. I'll post those here, and let discussion follow.

If you are thinking about developing, or have ideas or suggestions forPD-DOS, I would appreciate direct email to me. If you just want todiscuss the merits or morals of writing a PD-DOS, I'll leave that tothe net. I'll check in from time to time to see how the discussion isgoing, and maybe contribute a little to what promises to be a verypolarized debate! :->

I am excited about PD-DOS, and I am hoping I can get a group started!

Within a few weeks, other programmers including Pat Villani and Tim Norman joined the project. A kernel, the COMMAND.COM command line interpreter (shell) and core utilities were created by pooling code they had written or found available. Hall wrote over a dozen of the first DOS utilities for the project, mostly file and batch utilities. In a July 26, 1994 post, Hall announced the PD-DOS project had been renamed to "Free-DOS", having updated the project's goals to intend to distribute source code under the GNU General Public License. [cite newsgroup | title = Free-DOS project | author = James Hall | date = 1994-07-26 | newsgroup = comp.os.msdos.apps | url = http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.msdos.apps/browse_thread/thread/5ba32e845fff47db/3c9d5ab906730732?lnk=st&q=&rnum=22#3c9d5ab906730732 | accessdate = 2008-06-14] The project would later be renamed "FreeDOS", without the hyphen, after the publication of [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0879304367 "FreeDOS Kernel"] , by Pat Villani. Hall was the project's release coordinator from Beta1 until about Beta7, and also released the first alpha distribution of Free-DOS, as announced in a post on comp.os.msdos.misc. [cite newsgroup | title = Free-DOS alpha release to sunsite | author = James Hall | date = 1994-09-17 | newsgroup = comp.os.msdos.misc | url = http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.msdos.misc/browse_thread/thread/99affe77a2a12fc1/9c587944968f8d60?lnk=st&q=&rnum=15#9c587944968f8d60 | accessdate = 2008-06-14]

Hall is also the original developer of GNU Robots, but he is no longer active on this project and has since handed maintainership over to Tim Northover. It is now being developed by Bradley Smith.

References

External links

* [http://www.freedos.org/jhall/ Jim Hall's Homepage]