[FreeVMS] Status update

[BERTRAND Joel]

anthony c wrote:
> Hello everyone, my name is Anthony Cargile and I aim to contribute 
> heavily to the FreeVMS project.

	Hello Anthony,

> First off, I am a student in the United States and will be working on 
> this project in whatever spare time I can manage. I have avid experience 
> in operating systems, generally in various Unices, Linux and Windows NT 
> although I aim to learn more about VMS while working on this project. If 
> you're interested, I run a fairly large open source cross reference at 
> http://www.anthonycargile.info/ in addition to other tools provided at 
> that address.
> 
> My goal is to provide the FreeVMS project with a custom kernel from 
> scratch. Seeing as how the FreeVMS userspace will be OpenVMS-compatible 
> regardless of the kernel architecture, I am very open to suggestions 
> regarding the kernel's design. At the moment, I aim to make it a hybrid 
> kernel (monolithic with loadable modules while also providing a 
> userspace interface), but if anyone can provide enough reasoning 
> otherwise with regards to OpenVMS compatibility I will change the 
> architectural plans for the kernel.

	Thanks for your work. I have made some modifications on www.freevms.net 
and I have add a wiki to keep documentation up to date.
I have add a CVS over ssh too (only for developers). If someone need a 
read/write access, please send to me your public key.

> I am currently finishing up the VGA interface within the kernel 
> (scrolling, text output, etc.) and once done I will implement the 
> keyboard interface. Once finished with input/output, I will implement 
> the memory manager and GDT, then I will port GCC/binutils over to 
> FreeVMS after finishing up a C standard library and any unimplimented 
> kernel system calls. If anyone wants to help with any of this, please 
> communicate with me and it'll get done a lot faster.
> 
> I'm documenting everything within the kernel itself, and plan on also 
> documenting the kernel interfaces within the upcoming FreeVMS wiki.

	It's done ;-) But I think I have to write some configuration...

> The 
> FreeVMS kernel interfaces will be a set of global functions and 
> variables free to be utilized by loadable kernel modules for hardware 
> input/output and general kernel interaction, so their documentation is 
> vital for the development of drivers for the project.
> 
> Right now, once I check in a kernel with input/output support, the 
> wishlist is as follows:
> 
> + Memory management - I will try to implement this myself, but *very* 
> open to suggestions and any contributions
> + Filesystem Drivers - The kernel *needs* a filesystem driver, even if 
> FAT temporarily, so we can directly boot it and provide a VFS for shell 
> testing

	I think we have to use ext2/3 (or ODS/2, but I don't know if this 
driver is stable in read/write mode).

> + Executable Image Support - Working on top of the memory manager and 
> userspace environment, we need the ability to load ELF, VMS and COFF 
> images for execution
> + GCC/binutils port - If somebody could help out by looking on GNU's 
> site for documentation on how to do this, with the intention of helping 
> out, that'd be great
> + POSIX library - this is way down the road, but a POSIX interface is 
> one more step towards compiling OpenVMS code on FreeVMS
> + DCL - this will be written entirely in userspace once we've done 
> everything else listed here. In the meantime, I suggest a basic 
> bourne-like shell for testin
> + Userspace utilities - ping, telnet, telnetd, httpd, any OpenVMS-only 
> or kernel-interacting service needs to be implemented at this stage in 
> development
> 
> After all of this has been done (I give it a year or two of 
> developmental time given two or three more part-time voluenteers), we'll 
> have a fully-featured VMS clone. The only thing not really mentioned in 
> the wishlist is a CDE clone, but that's not as crucial to the project as 
> just getting a fully featured kernel and userspace.

	Why not DecWindows ? (I'm already outside ;-) )

> Like I said, I'll 
> check in an input/output capable kernel into CVS in a few days, and we 
> can start building up a userspace environment to make way for more 
> utilities on top of that.
> 
> Please let me know of any questions you have about the current/future 
> kernel state, as well as any questions for contributing.

	Regards,

	JKB