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Comment by transpute | Hacker News Reader

> we don't really need it - it serves no practical purpose

FreeDOS is used by PC OEMs for tech support, e.g. https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/ish_9586495-9586656-16

  You can create a DOS-bootable USB flash drive by downloading and saving a FreeDOS operating system image. The bootable USB flash drive can then be used for testing and troubleshooting any component on your PC.

FreeDOS helps sell PC hardware without the expense of a Windows license, for customers who would like to install Linux, OpenBSD, or separately licensed Windows, e.g. http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c02628224.pdf

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The "helping sell hardware without Windows" part is actually more like "helps PC vendors exploit a legal loophole and Microsoft keep its market share". They could just as easily install Ubuntu/whatever on computers that don't ship with Windows, but that might make some people stick with it and immediately install Windows on it. But if they put a useless OS like FreeDOS on there, they can check the "has OS" box, as well as the "no bundled license" box, without any risk to Microsoft's market dominance.

Hell, I think HP actually did put Linux on some of their laptops, but just as a compatibility layer to run FreeDOS, since they couldn't get it to work directly. This was clearly done for Microsoft's benefit and nobody else's - don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

I don't think this practice is in Microsoft's interest. People who buy a PC with FreeDOS usually install a pirated copy of Windows (or Linux, but not sure what the exact proportion of those is), which definitely doesn't contribute to M$'s bottom line...

Microsoft would far prefer you installing a pirated copy of windows to installing Linux.

Only WinDev, Azure, Office, XBox business units couldn't care less, they get their share of the pie, regardless.

Windows development currently sucks, versus Balmer era, and is full of Web developers for a reason.

They monetize your data.

On the contrary, being the primary desktop OS that everyone uses and thus everyone supports is Windows' biggest advantage. Anything that helps thingns stays that way contributes to Microsofts bottom line.

The get the money back via Azure Cloud OS (> 60% workloads on Linux), Microsoft 365 subscriptions and XBox.

Microsoft is the reason why this practice exists in the first place. Their Windows distribution contracts with OEMs say that all computers that an OEM ships must be preloaded with an OS (likely for the piracy issue you mention). Shipping FreeDOS allows OEMs to sell computers to people who don't want to pay for Windows licenses while also not having to provide support for Linux (or some other alternative OS).

“If it weren’t for _, it would surely be the year of Linux on the desktop” is not a new cry, but I don’t think I’ve seen FreeDOS used as the culprit before. Funny stuff.

Dell has been selling laptops with Linux for years. A few of the others have too.

Linux took a while to become supported on specific Dell models, https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-ubuntu-linux-snuck-into-hi...

> Barton recalled O'Grady suggesting it would be great for developers "if you took one of your laptops, put Ubuntu on it, and just got it to work. We said that's an awesome idea, but it'll never happen, because we're talking about Dell. Our laptops need to deliver huge volumes and revenue. When I talked to one of our higher-ups about the volumes that we thought we would sell, he said, 'Yeah, that's what we sell in Belgium on Tuesday, between three and four in the afternoon.' Despite this disheartening evaluation, when Dell started an in-house innovation fund, Barton pitched it again. This time, he was granted $40,000 to pursue the idea.

What's the functional difference between FreeDOS and some executables "for testing and troubleshooting any component" versus UEFI binaries for the same?

UEFI is roughly a modernized subset of DOS in firmware, with saner calling conventions.

A few decades of maturity, testing and network effects.

As I pointed out the "uselessness" is a generalization, although perhaps your suggestion of use cases rather proves my point.

Firstly "selling pcs without Windows". If you want to sell a machine without windows feel free to ship it with Linux or indeed nothing. Yes, FreeDOS is an option, but it's not unique.

Sure, some techs find it useful as a bare-metal hardware diagnostic tool. Presenting that micro niche as a use case kinda proves the point. (I'm not sure how FreeDOS fares with supporting new hardware but I'll assume it does. My experience with BSD doesn't make me over-optimistic though.)

But I think you missed my point. The main utility of FreeDOS is FreeDOS. It doesn't need to be more than that.

> feel free to ship it with Linux

That requires the OEM to support Linux on the device. This has only been done for select devices, e.g. Dell XPS, and was a major undertaking.

> Presenting that micro niche as a use case kinda proves the point

Everything is a niche until you need it, e.g. installing a BIOS update from FreeDOS USB drive, without needing an OEM-certified Linux or Windows install for firmware distribution.

I don't think examples of FreeDOS being useful 'prove [your] point' about FreeDOS being useless. I think the word 'useless' is an overstatement that's very easy to quibble over, and which therefore gets in the way of you getting your overall point across.

I think your overall point, ars gratia artis, is correct. People have a proclivity for trying to quantify the 'success' of OSS projects by virtue of user counts, use cases, etc, and yet all such measures are totally irrelevant for a non-profit project. There could be a single maintainer and a single user, and so long as they're both happy, the project is a success.

I think FreeDOS shows why worrying about something being "useless" isn't so productive: it probably seemed somewhat "useless" at the time, but ended up being more useful to more people, and for a much longer time, than initially predicted. Did anyone predict that it would be so useful, decades later, for the tech-support use-cases it enjoys now?

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