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ReactOS Revealed
reactosfanboy writes "DRM Hacker Alex Ionescu explained the internals of ReactOS in a recent talk. Ionescu indicates that ReactOS is nearly 100% binary and API compatible with the Windows 2003 kernel, and that they are aiming for full Vista compatibility. Ionescu attempted to demonstrate ReactOS but only succeeded in installing it after two BSoDs. This alone should make it clear that ReactOS is still not ready for prime time." In what may be a red flag for Microsoft's lawyers, ReactOS is described as "an environment identical to Windows, both visually and internally." Here are slides from Ionescu's talk (PDF), which might prove more useful than the video offered in various forms at over 450 MB.
...but only succeeded in installing it after two BSoDs ... the Windows emulation seems perfect !
How about a link to ReactOS in the summary?
^^
ReactOS would still be unsupported and untrusted in business, and it's proliferation would only add to MSFT's dominance of the market.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Not until all the malware works too!
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
They might want to look up what "identical" means. There is still a very long way to go. (I could have put a traditional screenshot up there too, from W2K or even W95, and it would still be true.)
There was a minor scandal last year when the ReactOS project had to be suspended after it was found that some developers had been exposed to the real Windows source code (which is available under shared source licenses in some contexts), and after a thorough audit the project continued.
The ReactOS people are taking the risk of copyright infringements very seriously.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This has inspired me to create a ground-up 100% reimplementation of the AOL client, identical in looks and functionality. Wish me luck!
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
I just had to wonder, WHY would anyone develop another OS that is "identical" to Windows?
Windows is bad enough...why do it all over again?
--E--
Having begun the struggle with adapting application installers to Vista, I think I'd be more interested in a version of ReactOS that ISN'T Vista compatible.
Thinking about this:
"In what may be a red flag for Microsoft's lawyers, ReactOS is described as "an environment identical to Windows, both visually and internally.""
People at the Microsoft campus must be moving the furniture out of Ballmer's office as we speak.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
If ReactOS is almost a Windows clone, but a sub-par one, this begs the question of why do we need ReactOS anyway? Well, to find the answer I went straight to the source reactos.org, but apparently they haven't figured out the answer yet either.
"In what may be a red flag for Microsoft's lawyers, ReactOS is described as "an environment identical to Windows, both visually and internally."
Oh, please... While I have no doubts MS will try to destroy ReactOs when it becomes too popular, the developers have made painstakingly difficult steps to ensure the proper reverse engineering is done ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_box_testing ). They can sue all they want, they can't win this. (They can however make it an expensive legal wrangling...but then again, since it's open source, it's difficult to imagine any single lawsuit will be able to end the project).
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
it seems a pretty obvious answer to me.
...but free, secure and open source...
put aside the fact that the softwares you mentionned are emulators, not OS,
it would steal users from windows.
imagine, having an OS the same as windows, friendly for computer illiterate
need i explain more ?
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
OK, I don't need to know this, but I'm an old assembler-head: I remember how much SMALLER DRDOS was than MSDOS. Microsoft makes bloated things.
I want to know how much memory ReactOS takes up versus WindowsXP. Has someone run it who can trivially answer? Did these guys make a smaller, lighter windows?
But you can see them here: http://www.alex-ionescu.com.nyud.net:8080/wloo-tal k.pdf
No. As others have pointed out, they did a thorough audit to make sure ReactOS wasn't tainted. Much of the project's source is actually derived from WINE (though with many differences, since ReactOS is an OS and not a compatibility layer), and last I heard the two projects have a friendly relationship and source and documentation goes back and forth between them wherever it can be helpful.
This poo is cold.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Wine
Is
Not
Enough
brilliant!
ReactOS still, apparently, has much of the graphics system in the kernel. Along with drivers. It emulates NT 4/2000/XP architecture, not NT 3.51, which actually had a cleaner kernel.
But at least they didn't put in a 16-bit subsystem.
The incident had nothing to do with Windows source and it was certainly not minor. It was due to certain parts having been implemented by the same programmer that had reverse-engineered them and was consequently "tainted" if the project was to adhere to its principle of black box testing only. That programmer was the very same Ionescu as here. The result of the unfortunate incident was that the programmer that found out about it (Hartmut IIRC) resigned from the project and the audit that is still going on was started. I read some of the discussion about it on the mailing list and apparently there was a great deal of concern about Ionescu's contributions since they came too quickly and were too good to be the result of just blax box testing (but not all is available for everyone so there could've been something else as well that resulted in the conflict between programmers - the whole project was to some extent in jeopardy, though). The only thing you're right about is that they take copyright infringement seriously but that has nothing to do with that incident.
hey, that sounds mighty familiar...
Actually what happened was someone alledged that someone on the development team had decompiled actual MS Windows dll and binary files, and included the resulting code into the ReactOS codebase.
Morbid curiosity. Kind of like when you drive past a car wreck.
...but free, secure and open source...
That doesn't necessarily follow. Duplicating a broken API will retain some of the security problems designed into the original OS.
This project can become very interesting for companies that rely on old equipment and software, which I think is a huge market.
With Microsoft changing the driver model and the API of Windows with Vista, a lot of applications and devices will not be supported by the latest and greatest from Redmond. This means no security patches/bugfixes for old equipment and software.
If ReactOS can emulate Win2k/XP, it could be used as a secure and supported replacement in those environments.
Illegal Mnemonic Character
* Stay Simple *
> Ionescu attempted to demonstrate ReactOS but only succeeded in installing it after two BSoDs.
With alpha or beta software, before giving a demo, test what you are going to do in private.
If it doesn't work, don't do it.
Too bad. The world would be a better place with ReactOS. What we need is a fat ass investor with loads of cash and a grudge against Microsoft to donate to this thing.
Linux has proven you can have a viable freeware OS. Now, while Vista makes everyones life miserable, there is an opening.
"Except via patent claims, for which independent development is not an adequate defense."
Well, in Europe we still don't have (enforcable) softwarepatents. Though it being an Open Source project, I'm not sure under what jurisdiction it falls.
But you make a good point: more proof that softwarepatents suck.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I would be much more interested in an OS X clone running on my PC, than in a Windows clone that I don't need.
Why clone a bad interface when you can clone a good one that many people would like to use?
What we DON'T have is a viable commercial product to compete with the PC/Mac control of the market for those of us who need to run professional programs. I mean no disrespect to Linux, and I plan to try out the UbuntuStudio as soon as it's out, but if you need to do video or audio/music production, for example, you're stuck with two platforms that continually underwhelm and have very little incentive to give users what they really want.
Both Microsoft and Apple have held the marketplace hostage for so long, that they can get away with ignoring the demands of their users, which is the symptom of a market out of whack. I want to run OSX on a box I build, but I can't. I want to run Vista without DRM, but I can't. I can keep going like this for a long time. It's the lack of serious competition that has kept the entire desktop market moribund for decades now.
We need another player, simple as that. We need a well-financed company to get into the desktop operating system game and stay there for a solid decade. Then we'll start seeing products and features that we REALLY want, at reasonable prices. Until then, it's going to be this silly charade of Bill and Steve, who we're supposed to believe are competitors, when they're really just enabling each other to abuse their customers, playing to their business partners in the entertainment-industrial complex. They may have done something at one time to move the status quo forward, but in the last decade they've just been a couple of jackoffs, doing zip for you and me.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Aside from shooting the lawyers, the best way to mitigate the lawyers, I think, would be to get rid of the "MS GUI". That is, abstract it a little bit and make it an API-compatible theme engine, with the default looking different.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
But then how is that:
we have VMware, we have 2007, we have everything necessary to run Windows programs without running Windows.
Pls post instructions on how to run Windows without Windows using VMWare. thx.
Not saying that is a bad solution, but that still doesn't allow you to run Windows programs without windows.
Windows with snapshots is still Windows.
/* Waste time to look like real Windows */
int i;
for(i = 0; i 1000; i++) {/*spin */}
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Most decent compilers would optimize that out. The ReactOS team would have to be *much* more clever to achieve the typical MS-Windows slowdown. If they programmed the whole thing in C#, it might just work.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.