[FreeVMS] New enthusiast.

[BERTRAND Joël]

Guido a écrit :
> Hi Chris,

	Hi,

> Unfortunately the project has not been active for quite some time now. I
> believe I was the last person to commit anything to FreeVMS 0.3.17 (in a
> separate branche).
>
> FreeVMS was originally based on the Linux 2.4.18 kernel with a lot of
> VMS code from the different internet resources added to it. I do not
> mean to belittle this effort, it is actually quite an accomplishment.
> The resulting FreeVMS 0.3.x code is an operating system that has some
> minimal VMS functionality. The downside is that it is presently still
> based on the Linux 2.4.18 kernel code, but now it is outdated and
> difficult to maintain. I tried to improve maintainability by eliminating
> unused code, consolidating coding styles, adding a minimal test
> framework, but I am afraid there is still a long way to go.
>
> The FreeVMS 0.4.x branch is a rewrite of FreeVMS based on the L4 micro
> kernel (in an effort to overcome the problems with the 0.3.x branch
> mentioned above, I assume). This branch did not get a lot of support
> though and lacks functionality. I must admit that I considered
> restarting form scratch myself several times, while working on the 0.3.x
> code, so I can appreciate this effort too.

	Right.

> At present, I am not sure how to proceed. I believe there are different
> options (some more viable than others):
>
> 1. continue the 0.3.x branch
> 2. continue the 0.4.x branch
> 3. restart from scratch
> 4. restart based on the latest Linux kernel
> 5. restart based on a different open source OS (possibly ReactOS?)
> 6. start with a compatiblity layer that enables you to recompile VMS
>    software on Linux or Windows (to be incorporated the into FreeVMS)
> 7. ...?

	L4/X2 was tried as this microkernel doesn't contain any unixisms and is 
able to create all separated address spaces used by VMS, but 0.4 
requires a pager and a swapper and I have no time to write it. If you 
want to use 0.4, you have to write these two pieces of code.

	Regards,

	JKB