However, free software requires your support. I'm not going to stand in front of you in the same way as those PBS folks do every so often. I am, however, going to ask for your help and I will continue to do so as long as I offer my operating system for free.

How can you help? You can help by not placing unrealistic expectations on the software or myself. I have spent hundreds of hours developing it but I am only a single person. I am not Microsoft or any other commercial operation. The time spent on DOS-C is my spare time. I cannot devote any more time to any problem that you find. I do not have a support staff at my disposal and I cannot custom tailor DOS-C for you. I don't have in-circuit emulators, remote debuggers and simulators to use during development. These cost money and since you're not paying for the software I can't buy them. If you care to make a donation, contact me.

With this said, I'd like to ask you to please honor the following guidelines:

• Download DOS-C and use it as you wish.
• Send email when you get it up and running
• If you find a bug, send me as much detail about the bug and the platform you are running it.   I'll try to fix it in the next release.
• If you are a programmer, try to look at the source and help by sending opinions. It's always a good idea to listen to other opinions. This is how I learn. Even though I hold a graduate degree and have over 25 years of industry experience I still know that there's always something new for me to learn.
• Remember how much you paid for DOS-C before telling me that I didn't reply to you in what you consider a timely manner. Have you ever tried to get Bill Gates to respond to your email? I know he's worth billions and I'm worth about $1.50, but I think you get the idea.
• Remember that DOS-C is an evolving piece of software. If this is unacceptable to you, then don't use it. You won't hurt my feelings by buying the Caldera DR-DOS or Windows. As a side note, my royalties from the book are very small and to date work out to a rate of $0.57 per hour on the book alone. I do not count the time spent developing DOS-C itself in that rate.  If I wanted to make money, I would have made more money flipping burgers at Mac Donald's.
• If you make changes to the source and redistribute it, please follow the GPL guidelines. Also, send back those changes for inclusion in the next release.
• If you have software you'd like to distribute with DOS-C, contact me and we'll work out the details. However, I only distribute free software.  I follow the terms of GPL, but I will accept any free software for redistribution.
• Don't ask me to make an exception to GPL for you to redistribute DOS-C commercially.  Frankly, if you want it for nothing, download it and follow GPL.  If you want it without GPL, you may purchase a commercial version.  This is not the free version and has other enhancements not found in the free version.  Contact me for more details.