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Ekush: A CherryOS For the Windows World?
GvG writes "Yesterday, Ekush version 0.10 was released (binary only, no source). Ekush is a relatively new attempt at cloning Microsoft Windows. The ReactOS project has the goal of creating a GPLed OS that is compatible with Microsoft Windows applications and drivers.
The release of Ekush caused some uproar in the ReactOS community, since it soon became apparent that Ekush was not much more than a repackaged version of ReactOS. Doing a simple string search for ReactOS on the Ekush binaries showed a number of hits. (Read on for more.)
GvG continues "Shortly after this was reported on the ReactOS mailing list, the Ekush website went down "for maintenance". Today they are back with a slightly altered set of binaries, which no longer contain the ASCII string "ReactOS". However, they forgot to search for Unicode strings... Ekush is not only violating the rights of ReactOS by deriving a product without releasing the modified source, they also derive code of (and are violating the rights of) Wine, FreeType and QEmu."
Larry Snyder adds "Additionally, at the time of this writing, their binary floppy diskette driver appears to be a near exact copy of the Windows 2k pro fdc.sys driver, with the copyright string and header changed."
It is too bad that a lot of people confuse Open Source with Public Domain. That is the problem with free software that is open source is that people feel compelled that they could use it to "Make" their own product without any form of recognition to the original developers. While I feel the GPL is strict on a lot of thing that it shouldn't be but just blatantly releasing a product that is based off an Open Source project with a different license is just wrong. I think there should be more education for the public that Free Software is not Public Domain and ripping off Open Source Work is just as bad a Pirating Closed Source Software. It is too bad that Commercial Enterprise doesn't respect IP Rights.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
...at getting purposely slashdotted for the purpose of testing some new server-side app like CherryOS turned out to be?
SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
Could it be that these various randomly 'popping-up' projects, gathering press around the 'theft' of code from OSS projects, is part of a larger dilution strategy?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
we's gonna get ourselves a GPL violator!
Damien
Now we neeed a Cherry OS for Linux
Oh wait...
I have already covered it here.
http://www.winehq.com/?interview=14
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
The website mntions that its designed for the Bangladesh market. I went to college with a prince of Bangladesh. He screwed me over on our final project for physics. Didn't show up for the presentation, then claimed that he had done all of the work I presented. Unfortunate for him, he didn't relalise that I had been consulting the professor on a regular basis about the project. So it was obvious who was telling the truth. I'm not saying everyone there is corrupt. In fact, the only problem I had with the situation is that he didn't even offer me a bribe of any kind.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I have been distantly following the ReactOS project and even gave it a short test in a Virtual PC environment. It has a long way to go yet. It also has a tough uphill battle since you could (feasibly) purchase Windows NT and licenses on eBay and outfit yourself with the real deal, minus ongoing support from Microsoft.
So is this a fork in the code? And why would you do such a fork at such an early stage? I cannot see that there is any money to be made from ReactOS or EKush yet.
Have you Meta Moderated t
They do have copyright law in Bangladesh -- they signed onto the Universal Copyright Convention. And they're WTO members, so that's even more restrictive when it comes to intellectual property.
That wouldn't really work. Stealing from OSS won't dilute the copyright; legally you can't dilute copyright. What WILL happen is that OSS will gain strength because they will have successful examples and experience under their belt with defending copylefted copyrights from theft.
I think if we're going to have a conspiracy theory, a slightly more realistic-- and more fun!-- one would be that a series of dedicated but unskilled open source programmers formed a professional suicide pact a couple years ago when the SCO case started to break off ties with one another. The pactmembers were to scatter into industry and independently begin projects which transparently steal open source code and put them into propeitary products, in hopes that these projects would be slapped down by the open source community and that the press would report on it. Once their projects were slapped down this would create positive press for the open source community and counter SCO's lie that OSS regularly steals from propreitary software and the nature of OSS makes this likely by demonstrating that it is, in fact, the other way around.
This was all, of course, orchestrated by the reanimated corpse of open-source sympathetic Nicola Tesla.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
With BSD you have far less requirements to give credit to the original creator.
So change the words open source in your speech with GPL and you are right. Use open source and you show you haven't understood anything.
Then again you use IP rights. Lets be clear. Open source and Free software are often mis used when instead you should use a license name like BSD/GPL/LGPL/Public domain/god knows what
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
"Ripping off" free software is actually worse because it confuses the message of free software. The message of free software is that free people can co-operate to make tools for themselves that work. A ripped free software tool with "improvements" directly undermines that message by trying to convince people that they need some closed software to make their lives easier. Typically, the ripped version is inferior but the money involved will create a stream of advertising that says otherwise. Public education on the value, cause and workings of free software is an ongoing project.
It is too bad that a lot of people confuse Open Source with Public Domain.
No, these bozos knew what they were doing and did not limit their "theft" to free software. They knew that they were violating licenses for free software just as much as they knew they were violating M$'s license by distributing their floppy driver. Since having the obvious string matches pointed out, they have tried to replace them without bothering to replace binaries or release source code. As the easiest thing to do would be to release source code, these people are up to no good and know it.
We shall see if they come clean. If they don't and M$ does not clean their clock, we can draw further conclusions.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Microsoft Windows is the most acknowledged operating system throughout the world. But it is highly dominated artifact to the people and MS have a monopoly to our desktop. Due to the fact, EKUSH is a lineup effort to the Win32 platform, an alternative OS to run your existing windows applications. Our focus is to build the alternative platform; a brilliant Operating System for our community.
Now THAT is a professional blurb -- wait here while I get my credit card!
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Slow???
We have third party drivers loading, a explorer.exe clone, application support such as OpenOffice for Win32 loading not to mention we have made replacement apps for regedit, taskmgr, and a Windows like install system. Whats slow about ReactOS development?
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Who is Ladesh and why does everyone say to bang her?
...There is a huge difference here. People don't download the latest *insert crappy pop artist here* and claim that they wrote that song.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
for fdc.sys. They'll stomp them but good. And we'll get GPL enforcement as a free side-effect!
Share and Enjoy: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
You'd think that, maybe, by the time they're compitent enough to even attempt to pull shit like this people would understand such "1337" tools as strings and grep.
Not only are they crooks they're no more than script kiddies . . . . .
Only in a Slashdot fantasy can a Slackware install turn into several hours of sex . . . . .
It's not a clone, it's an OS that is trying to be Windows binary compatible.
You could say they're trying to make a better "Windows".
I know we all love linux here, but IMO the only way to take desktops away from MSFT is to replace them with something thats compatible: something that runs all the same apps and games and supports all the same hardware by way of the same drivers.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I am the parent poster and I agree.
I develop custom software for a lot of companies and making sure that I follow the licenes is very dear to me because that way the company feels comfortable, with me and feels secure using the project. If I use a GPL Library I tell them that I am using a GPL library and if anyone want the source to this program you will have to release it to them. Which isn't an issue for most companies because their Data is far more important then the sourcecode use to manipulate it.
BTW.
I was actually making a little joke to conflect Microsoft and SCO who accuse Open Source Programmers not Respecting IP which is just the same gross generalisation.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I just thought the parallel was interesting. I really didn't mean to spread any predjudice. But, there is a bit of truth in saying that the contry is corrupt. Read this Bangladesh was recently named the most corrupt nation on earth.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
In music/movies/etc...you are granted fair use rights to create archival copies of those movies or music. True, some go over the top and want communist music and movies, but that's not necessary to allow you to make an mp3 of a song on a CD you own.
In this story, there is an existing license available for others to be able to reuse some copyrighted material, but copying, in and of itself is not the problem. If the jackasses who stole the GPL'ed software had put the source code up for download (and given attribution to the original author and licensed their work under the GPL) there would be no problem with them selling as many copies as they wanted. What's at issue is that they are not creating copies in accordance with what fair use allows *or* with what the applicable license (the GPL) allows.
Interesting, my ass.
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Nothing is slow about it! Ignore the moron :) You guys are doing an awesome job and it's much appreciated. Please keep up the great work. I think the grandparent underestimates the challenge at hand. The fact that you guys are making the progress that you have seems amazing.
Regards,
Steve
Will reactos binaries work under ms windows? I see in another post you say you've got an explorer clone, and some other clones of windows programs. I'd imagine your binaries would have to be .exe's and .dll's. Would I be able to replace my explorer.exe with your's? Of course chances are there'd probably be some programs that won't like the change very much, but have you tried running your apps under ms windows, and how well do they work?
Hmm.. How about:
Because having thousands of people noticing 'Look! There's copyright infringement going on over at _this_ site!" is just about the fastest way to get a site shut-down nowadays.
Scams and frauds are crimes best dealt with as publicly as possible. Do you seriously believe anyone is going to buy their 'product' because of this story?
Considering that NT was built on 10 years of development (NT4), and that ReactOS has only really been in steady development since 3/4 years, and that we already support some Windows 2003/Longhorn features, I wouldn't call it slow.
Best regards,
Alex Ionescu
Kernel Developer, ReactOS
I agree. It's the only way to get average users away from the MS they've been taught is the One True OS. But you need more than that; I remember setting up OS/2 in a lab in college; it was more stable and ran Windows (3.x) apps better than windows did. It didn't let an app crash windows and it didn't let Windows crash os/2. It was a great product. It died penniless and alone like certain literary figures in part because it didn't have a good advertising agent. if you build a better, faster, cheaper, rock-solid OS, they will come -- if they know about it, if it looks familiar, and if it runs what they have exactly like their old OS, but BETTER. But it has to be better as in "noticeable to Joe Average User" better, not as in "geeks know it's more stable" or "some people know non-monopoly is better.
I have nothing witty to fill this space with yet.
The interesting thing is that this guy is not a stranger to OSS either, he's got a savannah account.
A picture of this con artist showing off the work of other's he's trying to take credit for: here
The related article says:
"Licensing is one of the problems the Ekush team is expecting to face. As the project is not based in the US, Ekush OS will not be able to obtain the license banner of General Public License (GPL), the US-based licensing company."
Showing that either Mr. Ranju or the journalist (or likely both) have little clue on the GPL.
Site is either slashdotted or their hosting account has just expired.
./" page to put up to ./ requests, and just let "normal" traffic through...
You'd think hosting companies would by now have a special "bandwidth limit exceeded by hordes of people from
The fact they went back to hide more 'evidence' clearly shows their intent.
Anyone can mess up ( 'we plan on releasing source',' we didnt mean to change said copyright text', etc ).. But clearly this isnt a screwup.
Looks like their site has been turned off by their hosting service.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
May just be me, but its scary to hear the phrases "cloning Microsoft Windows" and GPL in the same context. Seems like we are just creating a door for legal problems.
You don't know what you're talking about.
If a developer doesn't want to enforce OSS license terms himself, he can always assign the copyright to somone who will. Such as the FSF (for GPL project) or the Apache foundation (for Apache-licensed projects) and so on.
The fact that the FSF hasn't actually been to court over a GPL violation isn't because they don't do anything, but rather because they're so successful at it that violators have chosen to settle instead.
Besides, what business is it of yours to ask lawyers to defend the copyright of a third party?
What if the developer/copyright owner himself doesn't care about the violation? It's nobodies business but his.
How can you claim damages on something that is free to the public to use and distribute? What is copyright violation worth when the software has no value in dollars?
This is also ridiculous. The software has value in dollars. If it didn't, there would be no point in ripping it off in the first place.
Try this: "What is the cost of commercially developing something with equal functionality?"
It's not about confusing OS with public domain, that would imply a mistake or misinterpretation. These folks are knowingly violating copyright. They're changing things to make it look like it's an unrelated product to hide that fact (especially if the "fdc.sys" statement is true)
With apparently violations across the board for Ekush, I wonder what it would be like to have GPL-using companies and MS in the same courtroom, sueing the same defendant...
If Ashcroft were here, he'd be going after these Linux copywrongdoers tooth and nail! Er, because he accomplished the goal of securing the US from crime and terror...
--
make install -not war
ReactOS may well be cool, but *UGH* they really need to find someone that knows how to write HTML.
I wondered why as I hovered over links the font size changed, cusing the entire page to flicker all over the place - then I found why:
From their page source:
meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0"
Friends dont let Friends use MSFP
Just tried to hit the link for the Ekush site and got --
This Hosting Account is Expired/Suspended
If you are the site administrator click here to contact with Technobd.com
I'm on a chair.
they also derive code of (and are violating the rights of) Wine, FreeType and QEmu
Just a pit-nick; AFAIK FreeType is distributed under a license which does not require redistribution of source.
Except that a lot of people argue that file-sharers aren't claiming that the music they are sharing is their own work, and therefore it is not copyright violation either.
In some cases, it may be more likely that you infringe when you share your own musical work. Some claim that the incumbent music publishers have snapped up the copyrights in almost every possible melody in the Western musical system, making any independent work an infringing derivative work.
In addition, the definition of "theft" in some states includes the copying of a sound recording without permission and with intent to distribute.
What's that I keep hearing around here when music and movie copyrights are violated, "it's not stolen
The difference is that courts tend to interpret the exclusive right to prepare derivative works much more broadly for "creative" works, such as musical works, sound recordings, dramatic literary works, and audiovisual works[1], than for "functional" works such as computer programs. Analogy is as if Microsoft could copyright the Windows API, making Wine an infringement, or if Xerox and Apple could copyright the Mac OS GUI, making Windows and X11 environments an infringement. It's easier to avoid infringing a copyright on software (especially compared to music), so Slashdot users tend to regard such a violation as more egregious.
[1] If you aren't familiar with copyright law terminology, the respective digital embodiments of these classes of works are MIDI files, Ogg Vorbis files, movie scripts in a markup language, and AVI files.
That's something I've wondered myself. Now, it's true that the two sets of people (those decrying GPL violations and similar, and those defending infringing copyrights on music and movies and similar) are not identical. However, for each article on each topic, there are a lot of highly-rated posts expressing each of those views, as appropriate. It's hard not to come to the conclusion that the consensus on slashdot is that infringing the GPL = bad, infringing movie/music/etc copyright = okay.
Me, I view all IP rights infringement as bad, unless there are strongly mitigating circumstances (by which I mean, people's lives are on the line), but I do feel myself to be in a minority here at times.
To all those of you reading this and thinking "but there are many views here!" that's true. But just look at the tones of the various articles, and the sorts of comments that get posted in response. Articles about the RIAA and MPAA suing filesharers for copyright violations always have a bias towards that being a bad thing, and yet we have articles taking companies to task for violating the GPL. Well, slashdot, you can't have it both ways, and no, predatory business practices and high prices don't excuse people infringing copyrights.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
No, the OS that stays crunchy in milk!
Filled with vitamin fortified DLL's!
And a free application in every box!
emt 377 emt 4
We don't like copyright as it's currently abused, and we believe that all useful material should be shared. Thus we have no problem with someone copying a program, or copying a music file. That's what the GPL is all about, really, the right to copy. What we do have a problem with is falsely claiming ownership. If this company was selling Britney songs for lots of money claiming to have written them, we'd have the same objections as we do now. If the company was putting gpl programs on an ftp site and distributing them over p2p, we'd have no problem with it.
I am trolling
Are you trolling? I ask because you've conflated several issues which are utterly unrelated, and you besmirch "open source" as some sort of WareZ or SerialZ scheme. If you're not trolling, then it's clear you are ignorant of these subjects.
First of all, your first assertion--that "the wonderfulll world of open-source" somehow advocates stealing intellectual property is patently ludicrous. If you care to browse the mailing-list archives for nearly any open-source project, and ReactOS's in particular, you will find a very clear regard for copyright, such that any incoming code contributions are challenged to ensure no non-opensource code is accepted.
Second, you assert that opensource works have "no serious copyright of any kind." Forgive me for asking, but what the hell does that mean? Are you saying that copyright is somehow less valid when licensed under the GPL, when compared to run-of-the-mill garbage click-through or shrink-wrap "licenses"? If so, would you kindly back up this baloney with a factual example? In my experience, the GPL has received favorable enforcement when asserted against infringers in the past; is the same true for click-throughs?
Further, you seem to suffer under the delusion that authors of opensource software are the same individuals who "consider it legit to publish security keys, hacks to encryption algorythms" and so forth. This is utter garbage, again. I defy you to name a single ReactOS or Linux developer (credited by name in the source code) who is a WareZ kiddie.
Finally, the "repackaging" that the ReactOS team finds objectionable is only that this "Ekush" entity is merely removing attributions to the true authors, and redistributing ReactOS-derived software without adhering to the licensing terms under which ReactOS was distributed. I'm sure they could care less if Ekush properly forked the ReactOS code and released their own version while adhering to the ReactOS license, and might even support serious parallel efforts if done for a principled reason--the ability to code-fork is one well-known and universally-acknowldged BENEFITS of opensource. But what happened here is mere blatant piracy, with no attention heeded to the original license.
CLIFF NOTES: get your damn facts straight, stop attributing attitudes or positions to people which they never held, and learn the difference between opensource and warez, you tool.
It's hard not to come to the conclusion that the consensus on slashdot is that infringing the GPL = bad, infringing movie/music/etc copyright = okay.
To be fair (and I do agree with you, by the way), the general view is usually closer to "infringing copyright for profit = bad, infringing copyright for personal use = good." So it's not soley a GPL vs Big Buisness thing.
I'm sure that if some company out there ripped of Britnee Speares and started trying to sell her CDs as their own, most Slashdotters would agree that's a bad thing. (And not just because Britnee Speares music is awful.)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
at the very end where they define GPL
0 11 09.htm
http://www.thedailystar.net/2004/10/20/d4102016
I am truly ashamed and apologize on behalf of my countrymen.
That's right. I've decided that tomorrow I'm going to release a new operating system. It will be a POSIX-compliant OS that will have complete Linux compatibility. It's also going to have a great desktop GUI that is 100% compatible with KDE.
The package will be named FishIx and FDE.
Now, away to the FishCave! I've grepping to do if I'm going to get this done in time! Kernel.Org is the place to grab source, right?
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
I think I can shed some light on the seemingly contradictory ideals that many folks hold regarding violation of GPL versus music "piracy".
First, very few of the pro-music-"piracy" folks believe that it's OK to sell the music they "steal" for money. Their main arguments are that the prices music companies want to charge are artifically inflated; and until recently, the music companies did not even offer legal copies of the music in the formats that the listeners were using. Also, many music downloaders (myself included, when I was on Napster) consider the P2P sharing a way to discover new music by "borrowing" a copy. Personally, my Napster usage caused me to buy several more CDs than I would have otherwise.
Second, the GPLed code is available for no cost already, so there's no money-saving incentive to break the GPL. Instead, those who purposely violate the GPL are causing something to be less free, while collecting money for it. Also, passing off someone else's work as your own is an additional moral infraction, beyond just re-distribution.
You could almost characterize it as "stealing from the rich" versus "stealing from the poor". Even if you agree that "pirating" music is wrong, you're still likely to agree that stealing from the poor is a more reprehensible action. And people have always gotten bent out of shape by sellers trying to pull a fast one on consumers.
Conversely, you could argue that music "piracy" is actually causing monetary harm to the IP owners, which is potentially damaging to their livelihoods. (I.e. it's worse to take money away from someone than to profit from something that was previously free.) But I think those who support music "piracy" believe that the monetary damages are minimal, if not outweighed by the benefits to the IP owners. Heck, even the music studios are aware of and take advantage of the benefits.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Consider: the GPL is a tool designed to use copyright law to "defang" copyright. Yes, it introduces its own set of restrictions, but they are quite different from the "creator ownership" of modern copyright. There's a reason it gets called "copyleft".
:)
Perhaps it's just that people are against copyright when it's used to smother creativity, and more supportive of it when it's crammed back into its original role of fostering creativity. Or maybe slashdotters just like to rip off music. Doesn't matter that much to me. But I think that if you want to say that people are taking both sides of an issue, you should first look more closely at what the two sides are, and find out what they have in common that one person could believe in both of them. It's almost always instructive.
We don't complain if you take ReactOS or PearPC and put it on a filesharing network. In fact we encourage you to do this.
What we complain about is taking something, changing the name, a few text strings and some images, and claiming you wrote it yourself.
This would be like taking one of Britney Spear's songs, changing the name and saying it was you who wrote it. I can't think why you would want to do that, but nevertheless, it could happen.
Well, slashdot, you can't have it both ways, and no, predatory business practices and high prices don't excuse people infringing copyrights.
:) which supports infringing copyrights? It this perspective so out there that people have a hard time figuring it out for themselves?
Is it not possible that there's one group of posters and moderators who support not infringing the GPL, and a _totally different group_ (possibly a younger one
I mean, really, the parent post mentions that there are "many views here", but that information does not seem to be a part of the poster's thought process. Yes, "many views", or "two sets of people", does explain everything. Period. Yes, it is easier to think of SlashDot as some sort of unified intelligence than to think of a collection of people. But SlashDot is just a collection of people. Assigning opinions to SlashDot itself is sophistry. Who exactly is the "you" in "you can't have it both ways"?
I say that as someone who opposes both GPL infringment and file sharing. I exist, thank you!