FreeM 0.62.3

Overview

FreeM 0.62.3 was released on March 27, 2025

Changes

Fix OO regression in method dispatch

The method dispatch code now has the following improvements:

• Method tag parsing skips comments, fixing a regression in inheritance scanning
• When any method is called, its class (routine name) is stored in a memory index, preventing the process from having to walk the inheritance chain on subsequent calls to the method, improving dispatch performance
• %STRING and %SYSOOP are cached this way automatically as soon as a FreeM process launches

Fix port for SCO OpenServer

Fixed all the bit rot in this port and made it work for the first time in a couple of years

Fix port for Tru64 UNIX

Made Tru64 work by reverting to global-backed SSVNs on this system

Port to OS/2 4.52+

Requires the full GCC toolchain; tested only on ArcaOS 5.1.

This port required using the OS/2-native DosCopy API instead of FreeM's internal file copy function (I should not have had to implement file copy myself to begin with, and it's utterly brain dead for an OS not to have this functionality built-in; I'm talking to you, UNIX!)

Currently, the OS/2 port only supports one environment with one daemon and a single interpreter instance.

Work is in progress to create an RPM package for FreeM on OS/2, just need to resolve some linker errors and gain access to the OS/2 World forums or some community where I can ask questions.

RPM Packaging

We now ship binary packages of FreeM in RPM and SRPM formats; tested on Rocky Linux 9 and Fedora 41 (should work on RHEL as well)

Make systemd units friendlier to RPM packaging

Including more init scripts in the source distribution of FreeM was necessary for RPM packaging

Packaging

FreeM 0.62.3 is natively packaged for:

• Solaris 5.8 on 64-bit SPARC
• Solaris 5.10 on 64-bit Intel
• OpenIndiana Hipster 5.11 on 64-bit Intel
• Debian Bookworm, Bullseye, and Trixie on amd64, i386, armhf, and arm64
• Ubuntu Noble and Oracular on amd64, armhf, and arm64
• NetBSD pkgsrc-wip
• Fedora 41/Rocky Linux 9 (should work on other Red Hat derivatives as well)

Links

• Downloads: https://freem.coherent-logic.com/downloads.cfm
• Documentation: https://freem.coherent-logic.com/docs/0.62.3/freem.html