[HN Gopher] ReactOS Updates
___________________________________________________________________
ReactOS Updates
Author : jeditobe
Score : 216 points
Date : 2021-02-09 09:56 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (reactos.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (reactos.org)
| xvilka wrote:
| I really hope the integration with QubesOS[1] will be completed
| in the near future. It will allow to run suspicious legacy
| Windows software without any hassle.
|
| [1] https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/2809
| simple_phrases wrote:
| Anyone do this with WINE and Qubes? I've found WINE to be more
| stable than ReactOS.
| secfirstmd wrote:
| Yeh that would be awesome
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Is ReactOS capable of running all the Windows software OK
| already? I'm curious if I can actually use it instead of Windows
| whenever I need a Windows VM.
| chungy wrote:
| Wine tends to have far higher compatibility, and the operating
| system it runs on top of is mature too.
|
| ReactOS is a cool project, but it's an alpha-stage complete
| operating system with bugs as basic in nature as you shouldn't
| even expect the file system to live long without being
| corrupted, or the OS crashing constantly. Not to mention they
| primarily focus on Windows XP compatibility, Vista and newer
| software is generally unlikely to work.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| From that, it sounds like ReactOS already provides the
| classic Windows experience!
| chungy wrote:
| Non-joking: it's probably about on par with Windows 98 when
| it comes to stability.
|
| There was a day people accepted that sort of thing... but
| not anymore.
| lyptt wrote:
| A lot of software from the Windows XP days runs well. Running
| newer software than that isn't usually as successful.
| GNOMES wrote:
| Bryan Lunduke on Youtube and LBRY, has as a wishful hope for the
| future of ReactOS.
|
| He imagines if Microsoft with their whole "We <3 Open Source"
| ideal either open sourced older versions of Windows (he mentions
| 3.1 for Work groups, or 98 back), or better, backs/contributes
| code to ReactOS themselves.
|
| One of his arguments is that either method would take minimal
| effort from Microsoft, and would show their love of Open Source.
| The code could be made available as is, and allow the ReactOS
| project to continue burden of development/support.
|
| His second major argument is that Microsoft would not take a
| financial hit from releasing these old versions. The OS's are no
| longer available for purchase in stores, and MS no longer
| provides support. Could also convince Embrace/Extend/Extinguish
| gray beards that Microsoft is "changing", making them more likely
| to trust MS.
|
| Ultimately he theorizes Microsoft could only make finical gain
| from this. This comes from the positive community views (and
| wallets), and they could be positioned to repackage it as a
| "Windows Classic". This would allow them to "sell" and support
| old code again that would be perfect for legacy software, yet run
| on modern hardware.
| monocasa wrote:
| More than their prod code, I'd love them to open their win32
| test suite.
|
| That's something that's very usable piecemeal, and is probably
| more useful long term than a single version of a code dump like
| we'd probably get if they open sourced.
| edgyquant wrote:
| Making Windows open source has been brought up before, and I'm
| just quoting what has been said and it could be wrong, but lots
| of people made the claim that Windows is such an old codebase
| with 25+ years of different people (and, sometimes, companies)
| involved that it's a huge legal task to be able to open source
| it. So even if it was in the interest of Microsoft they'd have
| to remove a lot of legacy code or track down individual
| contractors and get permission to do so (not to mention
| hardware support that may have been given to them under a
| proprietary license.) Again this could be bs, I'm not sure, but
| it makes sense if this is the case.
| moistbar wrote:
| It would also make an interesting companion product if the
| rumors of a switch to the Linux kernel turn out to be true,
| though more likely they'd just "Linux 10" alongside Windows for
| a while.
| sergeykish wrote:
| Will not happen while OS department is profitable, or even
| afterwards. They would just build on top of open source project
| (no source code of old IE versions).
| ksec wrote:
| The Open Sourced MS-DOS [1].
|
| Windows 98 could still be in used in some places for some
| obscure reason? Especially when you consider Windows ME and
| 2000 include many of the Windows 98 component. Open Sourcing
| those would create some security and legal problems.
|
| Although I do wish they could start with open sourcing the
| Kernel.
|
| [1] https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS
| gostsamo wrote:
| There was some Quora answer according to which ReactOS is derived
| from an proprietary MS research code. Doesn't it mean it would
| have legal issues if ever they decide to use it in anything close
| to real scenario?
|
| Edit: reference to the question
|
| https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-about-ReactOS?share=...
| p_l wrote:
| Sounds like FUD - There are things like NT4.5 which is NT built
| from university source copy of (as the name suggests) NT as it
| was somewhere between 4.x and 5.0.
|
| But ReactOS is clean room, and like Wine, AFAIK actively bars
| from contributing people who had contact with MS source code -
| IIRC it also cooperates heavily with Wine on implementing
| things.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| ReactOS denies those accusations. If it's true and proved,
| probably users should stop using it, but until it's proved, I
| don't think that it's an issue. Like you've got some software,
| you checked its license, it's open source reimplementation of
| Windows, sounds good. For example Valve uses wine to run games
| on Linux, it's pretty legit.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| WINE and ReactOS are separate projects and the allegations in
| the Quora post are specific to ReactOS. WINE doesn't handle
| NT kernel internals; it reimplements public Windows APIs and
| proxies kernel functionality to the host userland (usually
| GNU+Linux+X11 but occasionally Darwin+AppKit).
|
| The main existential threat to WINE would be the
| Oracle/Google case being decided (sometime before June). If
| that winds up creating adverse precedent to Google's case,
| the entire Free Software movement will be negatively
| impacted. Actually, it'll be like 100 SCOs, given how much of
| our Free foundations are functionally-compatible
| reimplementations. We'll lose pretty much everything except
| scripting language runtimes, Rust, and C compilers; and there
| would surely be no way to do something like WINE if SCOTUS
| decides to trample all over the merger doctrine and starts
| granting copyright on functionality.
| anthk wrote:
| Let's do the reverse: call out BSD folks and sue everyone
| for using the C API + BSD networking.
| Nursie wrote:
| This is false.
|
| There _was_ an issue when there was a leak of windows source
| code to the internet, and ReactOS effectively had to shut down
| development for months while all code was audited to make sure
| no helpful folks had used any of it to 'help' the project.
|
| That's the only MS IP controversy they've been involved in (and
| I've been watching the project for waaaay too many years now)
|
| (That issue answer reads like someone angry, and with an
| agenda. It also reads somewhat like the SCO/Linux thing a few
| years ago - there's no way anyone could write an OS like linux
| from scratch! It has to be stolen! Also the aforementioned
| shutdown/cleanup period kinda points to them taking this issue
| very seriously)
| nailer wrote:
| The specific issue is;:
|
| > Many internal data structures and internal functions, not
| exported anywhere and not part of the public symbols, have
| the exact same names as they appear in the Research Kernel
| (which, by the way, is quite obsolete). There is an almost
| surely zero probability that this happened, at that scale, by
| accident.
|
| Unfortunately I don't think anyone who doesn't have access to
| the research kernel is capable of answering.
| viraptor wrote:
| Even if someone had access to compare it, I wouldn't put
| the probability at 0. Windows has a pretty specific way of
| naming types, fields and functions. Some of those leak
| through error messages and other methods of introspection.
| They're have to match on a few very esoteric private fields
| to support that argument.
| monocasa wrote:
| He didn't know that Microsoft had shipped private symbols
| publicly by accident several times.
| gostsamo wrote:
| The guy seems to point to the reasons for his opinion, that's
| why I'm asking. I'm not so invested to check symbol names in
| the reactos repo vs the leaked code.
| MikusR wrote:
| It was by one "I am very smart. Nobody can be as smart as me"
| Microsoft programmer. Who completely dismissed this explanation
| https://youtu.be/2D9ExVc0G10
| watersb wrote:
| NTFS? Impressive.
| tyingq wrote:
| Looks like the news is related to boot partition work starting
| to be followed by support for formatting.
|
| That sounds like ntfs worked already if you had an existing
| non-boot partition.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| I gather ReactOS builds upon the work for WINE and other open-
| source Windows-compatibility libraries - nothing wrong with
| that, but it isn't _as_ impressive as it sounds - not that
| ReactOS as-a-whole isn 't impressive as it is.
|
| -----
|
| Dirty rumour + speculation time: I understand that, to an
| extent, ReactOS is supported by the Russian government to
| ensure they have options for running their IT systems in the
| event of US or NATO-led sanctions which would prohibit service
| and support from Microsoft corporation. Ordinarily I wouldn't
| be concerned (geopolitics, yey) but given Putin's current
| direction... I hope ReactOS is getting suitably security
| audited...
| jeditobe wrote:
| ReactOS foundation is located in Germany -
| https://ev.reactos.org/index_en.htm
|
| The project did not receive any serious support from the
| state institutions of Russia
| wiz21c wrote:
| Given current US direction, I hope ReactOS is getting
| suitably security audited...
|
| To be clear, I don't know what Biden is up to but any country
| big enough sure have secret services making sure their
| country stays in the game. That's just part of history.
|
| Now, as an individual, I'd be very happy to have a clean OS.
| But, considering the difficulty/practical impossibility to
| make my own audit, well, in the end, I have to trust
| someone...
| amaccuish wrote:
| Please point me in the direction of the Wine NTFS driver?
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Russia's plan is to use Linux whenever possible. I never
| heard about ReactOS used anywhere.
|
| Security audit won't hurt, for sure.
| wongarsu wrote:
| If that's Russia's backup plan then it's severely
| underfunded. I'm sure Russia could hire a couple of capable
| software engineers/reverse engineering experts to contribute
| to the project (just as the US Naval Research Laboratory
| employed people working on TOR). But if Russia is doing that,
| then clearly not enough to bring ReactOS to a production-
| ready level within the next decade.
| tomcam wrote:
| The About page is a model of its kind:
|
| https://reactos.org/what-is-reactos/
| sradman wrote:
| From Wikipedia [1]:
|
| > ReactOS is a free and open-source operating system for
| amd64/i686 personal computers intended to be binary-compatible
| with computer programs and device drivers made for Windows Server
| 2003 and later versions of Windows. ReactOS has been noted as a
| potential open-source drop-in replacement for Windows and for its
| information on undocumented Windows APIs.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS
| philjackson wrote:
| Lofty goals.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| Indeed but it does provide direct value to the open source
| community even when it fails in the more ambitious end goal.
| For example the ReactOS and WINE devs do collaborate a fair
| amount.
|
| I've also read that a fair number of ReactOS developers have
| been recruited by Microsoft over the years. So even if the
| project itself never reaches feature parity, it's still a
| strong advert to put on ones CV.
| rakoo wrote:
| If ReactOS is stable enough, it can also be an alternative
| for all the places where a very specific software runs on a
| very specific Windows edition, without having to redevelop
| the application (think ATMs or specialized displays)
| hnlmorg wrote:
| That's the hope for many. I haven't yet had any success
| using it in such a way but I'm hopeful too.
| johnchristopher wrote:
| ReacOS is a testament to how solid were Windows 2000/XP's UI for
| everyday tasks.
|
| I wouldn't mind being back in a Windows env/shop with ReactOS.
| mhd wrote:
| As with many things, I think from a pure UI perspective every
| Windows/Office release made things worse. Win95 was pretty
| solid, even improved on a few things that they took from the
| state of art at that time (Nextstep, Classic Mac, OS/2). The
| Taskbar being a good example.
|
| I'm still not sure that the move from actual buttons on a
| button bar to just a flat series of icons was right, and many
| such changes happened after that (culminating in the horror of
| the ribbon bar).
|
| The big items Win2K/XP brought to the market was stability
| outside of the NT niche (I really enjoyed NT4). On the UI
| level, the downgrade continued, especially with that ugly blue
| standard theme and the bisque semi-rounded UI elements.
|
| But boy, would I like to see some "distro"-fication of that.
| And I'm not talking about just using different themes or
| "shell" replacements, but about putting the core parts to good
| use. It could be amazing to what some dedicated minds could do
| with COM, OLE, VCL and VBS. A much more modular environment,
| similar to what OpenDoc promised and didn't keep. (And maybe
| add some Amiga stuff)
|
| Not that my hopes are very high in that regard, as Linux and
| the BSDs didn't manage to do that either, despite having most
| of the technology and even doing some half-hearted attempts
| (CORBA was a part of early GNOME)...
|
| A Windows shop these days isn't that much different from any
| other enterprisey shop. Cloud, VM language, web UIs with enough
| whitespace to hide Moby Dick. Not that many of the smaller
| shops around that did custom desktop apps for small businesses.
|
| Oh, and as a final note: If you like the aestheticof 90s-ish
| Win, check out Serenity OS[1]. It's pretty awesome what they
| put together. A not slavishly POSIX-ish system with a
| Win95-like UI. Even the starts of a remarkably capable
| browser...
|
| [1]: http://serenityos.org/
| hestefisk wrote:
| I agree, NT4 to me was the peak of MS greatness. How I miss
| the blue boot screen and the speed of use.
| pjmlp wrote:
| > Not that my hopes are very high in that regard, as Linux
| and the BSDs didn't manage to do that either, despite having
| most of the technology and even doing some half-hearted
| attempts (CORBA was a part of early GNOME)...
|
| D-BUS has taken up that role, but it doesn't get as much as
| COM/UWP, which many still don't realize that since XP the
| large majority of new Windows APIs are only available via
| COM, with a possible additional .NET wrapper on top.
| mhd wrote:
| DBUS would probably be closer to DCOM or even the Amiga's
| ARexx ports. Granted, with that plus XEmbed, you could get
| a lot of the benefits without an explicit object
| model/component system, but I haven't seen that done a lot
| in action. Linux users mostly go for 70s shell/pipes to
| cobble together parts. Better than nothing, but man, such
| wasted opportunities (and even something that doesn't
| require Lisp/Smalltalk/Oberon systems where everything is
| the PL anyway).
|
| There's more GUI scripting done on Macs and Windows. Whole
| cottage industry automating Excel, for example...
| pjmlp wrote:
| I feel you, back when I look to some setups I hardly see
| any difference to my former self organising xterms in
| groups of four on a X Windows IBM terminal connected to a
| DG/UX server, in 1994.
|
| Linux/BSD have the tooling, yet it is ChromeOS and
| Android that reap the benefits of such component based
| APIs.
| moistbar wrote:
| >culminating in the horror of the ribbon bar)
|
| I'm sure this is still an unpopular opinion, but I've come
| around to the idea of the ribbon bar. Toolbars as they were
| pre-Office-2007 usually only contained duplicates of entries
| that were already in the menu. The menus are difficult to
| discover things in and limited to only showing text (at least
| in the "classic" sense like Office 03 used). Ribbon bars take
| the discoverability of a toolbar and make it use only as much
| space as a menu would. It's a solid compromise IMO.
| benbristow wrote:
| > I'm still not sure that the move from actual buttons on a
| button bar to just a flat series of icons was right, and many
| such changes happened after that (culminating in the horror
| of the ribbon bar).
|
| To be fair, they've left the classic mode in. Right click the
| taskbar, then click 'taskbar settings', scroll to the bottom
| and there's a dropdown for 'combine taskbar buttons'. Change
| it to 'Never' for the classic mode. (This is also present in
| Windows 7/8)
|
| I prefer the new mode, less mouse movement required and looks
| tidier personally but it's nice the option is still there.
| mhd wrote:
| I meant the regular toolbars underneath the menus (in MFC
| it was CToolbar, I think), that in Win95 were a set of
| regular icon buttons, including a beveled edge.
|
| Within a few Office and OS versions, that changed to first
| dropping the beveled edge, as we might realize that icons
| under the menu are buttons, and there would be less visual
| noise, then large buttons with icons + text, and finally
| getting into an incestous relationship with the menu and
| becoming ribbons.
|
| (Although, I do the old-fashioned taskbar settings, too.)
| cies wrote:
| > Win95 was pretty solid
|
| Win98SE was the peak IMHO.
|
| Nowadays I like KDE/Qt on Linux.
| mhd wrote:
| Note that I was only talking about the uniformity of the UI
| here. Stability-wise, every DOS Windows was pretty bad.
|
| Win98SE's toolbar were those big mozilla-ish ones, right,
| with both text and icon and no button border? Other than
| that, I can't remember anything distinguishing about the 98
| UI. Were gradient in the window bars introduced with 98 or
| SE?
| Lammy wrote:
| Win98 shipped the IE4 "Desktop Update" webified-Explorer
| that was an optional install for Win95 IE4, then Win98SE
| was Win98 with IE5.
| anthk wrote:
| Ditto with the 2.4x/2.6x kernels on Linux/ FreeBSD 4.x and KDE3
| on top, with the first release of X.org. I am more like a
| Fluxbox + ROX guy, but if I had to choose a DE, KDE3 was rock
| solid and featureful, and you could disable Artsd just fine,
| dmix and OSS4 on earch respective systems worked well
| otherwise.
| chungy wrote:
| It's a real shame that Microsoft has seen fit to try to hide
| the ability to use the classic theme in Windows 8/10. There are
| ways to enable it again, but they tend to break on every
| update...
|
| The classic Windows 2000 theme has just the perfect balance of
| looking good, being totally usable, and not being overtly
| flashy.
| rob74 wrote:
| Maybe I'm a minority here, but I already used an alternative
| color scheme with beige backgrounds and dark red title bars
| (I think it was called "Brick") on Windows 95 because the
| various shades of grey looked too dreary for my taste. So I
| was happy to see that Windows XP kept the beige background
| and never looked back. Plus, under Windows XP an application
| that popped up with the "classic" styling was a red flag
| indicating that the developers didn't know how (or didn't
| care) to include a manifest file/resource to activate the
| "XP-style" controls...
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| The classic theme doesn't use DWM sadly (at least it didn't
| in Windows 7, I assume it still true in 10). So it doesn't
| just change appearance but also how it performs: DWM offloads
| compositing from the CPU to the GPU.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _DWM offloads compositing from the CPU to the GPU._
|
| That was actually a feature. I wanted to use my GPU for
| other things like gaming and rendering things I actually
| _wanted_ to be pretty.
|
| The OS interface doesn't need to be pretty. It needs to be
| usable. The pretty and usable are usually conflicting
| goals.
| nonbirithm wrote:
| The issue is, at least when I tried it in Windows 7,
| without DWM you don't get Vsync. That means any video or
| game you play will have horrible screen tearing. I used
| to have a script to switch to Aero temporarily when I got
| fed up with it enough.
| folkrav wrote:
| > The pretty and usable are usually conflicting goals.
|
| That's a pretty bold statement.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _That 's a pretty bold statement._
|
| I use computers for 10-20 hours each day. I've come up
| with some pretty bold opinions based on actually wanting
| to improve efficiency of using computers. Someone else's
| ideas of aesthetics almost always conflicts with
| efficiently using the computer.
| folkrav wrote:
| You presented it as a fact, not an opinion, thus my
| original answer.
|
| FWIW, as a general rule, I disagree: say you get to use
| two pieces of software with the same functionality,
| shortcuts et. al. for similar amounts of time, the first
| having 0 regard towards UI/UX, and the second having
| spent some time thinking about how it presents
| information and overall legibility. I'd be more than
| extremely surprised if most users couldn't possibly end
| up being more efficient using the second.
|
| However, sure, making things pretty for the sake of it
| tends to impede on usability.
| userbinator wrote:
| The classic theme is simple enough that it doesn't need GPU
| assistance (besides the usual 2D acceleration); and you get
| a noticeable decrease in latency from it:
|
| http://www.lofibucket.com/articles/dwm_latency.html
| vel0city wrote:
| Gotta love when you cite a source which starts off with:
|
| > Note: These results are totally wrong.
| ducktective wrote:
| I think you might enjoy Xfce from the GNU/Linux world.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| I agree 100%, but you can go further. Like, all the way:
| https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95
| Koshkin wrote:
| There's also FVWM95.
| afavour wrote:
| Just looking at it I'm struck by how difficult it is to get
| the small details right. I don't even know exactly what's
| wrong but the spacing at the top and bottom of the title
| bar text is visibly wrong, and the menu bar is too high?
|
| I don't say it to be needlessly negative, it just amazes me
| how difficult this stuff can be. And I don't think I could
| actually use this, it would drive me insane for reasons I
| can't really justify.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| For trying to reverse engineer a look, what has been done
| with this theme is amazing! I use it in a VM and on a
| laptop. Between higher resolution/PPI screens than CRTs
| that displayed this old Windows look, and familiarity
| with XFCE, the spacing doesn't look weird to me.
|
| For me, fonts are more important (and easier!) to get
| right than being pixel perfect, so I grabbed the real
| fonts from a Vista install DVD, and used those.
| cheph wrote:
| Can confirm, I loved windows 2000 UI and I'm now using XFCE.
| XFCE is of course better, just sad there is not more
| maintainers for it.
| cies wrote:
| A KDE desktop has about the same resource consumption as XFCE
| but with lots more features/maintainers. And there exists a
| KDE win95ish theme:
|
| https://www.opendesktop.org/p/1253201
|
| With the Redmond or Chicago95 theme for GTK, those apps also
| look in place in case you need them.
|
| For truly a low resource usage desktop I look at LXQt. Same
| base lib as KDE, namely Qt, which is apparently a lot lighter
| on the resources than GTK. Not sure if it is ready yet these
| days.
| deknos wrote:
| i'll be glad for the day, when reactos provides an official
| virtualbox and kvm/libvirt image which can be booted :)
| sophistc wrote:
| anything like this for Vue?
| dlvktrsh wrote:
| yeah vue gets updated sometimes too
| einmaliger wrote:
| ReactOS has nothing to do with ReactJS.
| jamesu wrote:
| Does any of this translate into actual real-world improved
| stability yet?
| nexthash wrote:
| Out of curiosity - what do people use ReactOS for? Does anybody
| daily it, or is it mainly used as a testing environment for
| certain Windows applications? I'd love for somebody who uses it
| to comment.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| When I followed this link via Chrome, a tool tip popped out of my
| address bar ("Did you mean reactjs.org?" with some warning about
| attackers using deceptive URLs). I wonder if there's a way to
| whitelist URLs with Google to prevent users from seeing this
| message. Especially since I believe ReactOS has been around long
| before ReactJS
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| Chrome user here - I didn't get any notifications or popups
| like that. Do you have a third-party Chrome extension
| installed? I know a lot of AV vendors love to auto-install
| their own cyber-security browser extensions that report stuff
| like that, so it could be that?
| dlvktrsh wrote:
| it's definitely a feature that's been around chrome (I'm
| remembering from both mobile and desktop) for a while. I
| think the way they show this message has changed over time
| and probably don't show it if you think you're an advance
| enough user, that'd be my guess. or maybe you have an
| extension that stops u from seeing this
| estsauver wrote:
| It may be a g suite setting/configuration as well.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| No*, but I visit reactjs.org regularly, so this could also be
| due to Google tracking me. In full disclosure, I clicked the
| article thinking it was about ReactJS. I've never used
| ReactOS, though I've been aware of the project (and visited
| their webpage) before ReactJS was even a thing.
|
| Edit: This could very easily be from AdBlock Plus as well,
| but the tooltip was under the address bar (and it doesn't
| reappear when I visit reactos.org)
|
| Edit2: I got this when navigating to https://goggle.com also
| (that's goGGle, not google). Turned off Lastpass and Adblock
| Plus to confirm it wasn't from them.
| dlvktrsh wrote:
| that's thoughtful! I'm gonna do it too. maybe you can find
| an appropriate feedback section somewhere too, but who
| knows how useful that is
| josteink wrote:
| > I wonder if there's a way to whitelist URLs with Google to
| prevent users from seeing this message
|
| The best way to avoid having Google interfere with your
| browsing is to use a non-Google browser.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| > _Especially since I believe ReactOS has been around long
| before ReactJS_
|
| More than 3 times longer. ReactOS was started in the 90s (in
| fact I might have even used ReactOS before I first used Linux.
| There certainly isn't much between it). Whereas React.js was
| started in 2013 (ref: Wikipedia).
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >Especially since I believe ReactOS has been around long before
| ReactJS
|
| Well, you just reiterated that ReactJS is newer and newer is
| always better. /s
| psychoslave wrote:
| Stop using Chrome? :D
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I wasn't referring to _me_ whitelisting sites, the tooltip
| wasn 't an issue for me.
|
| But for legitimate communities building honest software (or
| any honest product, really), it can be harmful to have
| potential users/contributors being scared off by a message
| like this. At the very least, it can make visitors question
| the legitimacy of the product. Since ReactOS has been around
| for decades at this point, it seems as if they're suffering a
| penalty for not being as _popular_ as ReactJS, which is kind
| of bullshit, if there 's no way for ReactOS (and other
| legitimate companies which may be affected) to let Google
| know "hey, we're doing our own thing, would you please mind
| not scaring potential users away". Whether or not _I_ use
| Chrome, at least 60% of Internet users do. And I 've never
| seen a warning when visiting reactjs.org asking if I didn't
| _actually_ mean reactos.org, so the axe doesn 't swing both
| ways here.
| londons_explore wrote:
| What is ReactOS's endgame?
|
| It seems they will never have enough resources to become more
| popular than windows.
|
| And they will never manage to become the desktop OS of choice
| over Linux or Mac either.
|
| It seems to sit in an odd place with only a tiny userbase and no
| real goal, permanently playing catchup.
| CivBase wrote:
| I think of it as a safety net.
|
| If Microsoft ever damages the reputation of Windows too much,
| ReactOS can act as a drop-in replacement for many things with
| relatively little investment compared to migrating to an OS on
| another kernel. Even if they're not currently a threat Windows,
| they have done enough of the groundwork that some extra funding
| and support could make them a serious competitor should the
| need ever arise.
|
| Plus, it's just cool.
| highwind wrote:
| Why does it need an endgame? As long as it has enough interest
| to keep it going, then they should make whatever they like.
|
| Not everything has to be #1 to be sustainable, interesting
| and/or worthwhile.
| haolez wrote:
| It might be a good open source desktop environment option for
| the future. Something like what Haiku tries to be.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| I've noticed a couple things over the last half decade:
|
| - Windows has gone very stagnant IMO. Sure they might have a
| bunch of new apis for 8/10, but... are there killer apps for
| them?
|
| - Windows is no longer in growth phase. COVID computer demand
| surge is a temporary measure, and will probably be followed
| with a long shallow valley
|
| - ARM is coming on the desktop, and it's going to destroy
| Windows backwards compatibility. That creates a tentpole point
| for ReactOS to target for compatibility, and likely something
| that, like Dosbox, microsoft would de facto embrace to
| alleviate itself of pressures of backwards compatibility
|
| So I think ReactOS could settle into the "backwards
| compatibility VM" that windows could (should) actively support
| so they can move onto a new processor architecture.
| progforlyfe wrote:
| Preservation. Think a library or museum archiving a piece of
| human culture. Not just the OS itself but the programs that run
| on the OS. If ReactOS succeeds you'd be able to run those
| Win95/98/XP era programs literally forever (think 100 years
| from now) as long as ReactOS is kept up to date and compiled on
| new processor architectures. Sure you can target running the
| real original OS as well but this requires a virtual machine
| and doesn't always work right, since drivers have to be written
| for the legacy OS to support the VM virtual hardware in some
| cases.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| You may have not realized but Windows has been in maintenance
| mode for a while, since v10. Aka the last Windows.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| is this why windows 10 continues to get new features?
| the-dude wrote:
| For those completely out of the Windows-loop : what are
| those new features?
|
| I do know about WSL, which you could consider an anti-
| feature in a way.
| muricula wrote:
| Windows has not been in maintenance mode and Windows 10 is
| not the last version of Windows:
| https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/4/22212817/microsoft-
| windows...
| StillBored wrote:
| How much of the windows churn over the past decade has been
| widely accepted as good by the users?
|
| They only really need to get to a XP64/win7 level of win32
| capability with the ability to run a recent graphics stack and
| they will win. They have been getting closer to the "just"
| works bit every year. At some point I suspect their market
| share will start to rise enough that application vendors start
| assuring their programs work properly.
|
| At which point they could have a larger market impact than
| macos has had for the past 30 years.
| iknowicouldturn wrote:
| I have been as skeptical as the parent post. You make a good
| point though. Getting to Windows 7 at any point this decade
| will give them a real shot at increasing user base. I assume
| most people would be happy on Windows 7 as on Windows 10
| outside of becoming comfortable on Windows 10 over the past 5
| yrs
| Koshkin wrote:
| When Linux the kernel will eventually be completely absorbed
| into systemd, and the Mac will turn into one giant Touch Bar,
| there will remain only two contenders for the reasoned user:
| Windows and ReactOS. (Unless Apple buys Microsoft by then, that
| is.)
| amaccuish wrote:
| https://twitter.com/ThatStupidDoll/status/135878904756556595.
| ..
| higerordermap wrote:
| Windows will turn into one big fullscreen candy crush. React
| OS IS THE end game.
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| I think with Windows 10 being the last version of Windows,
| ReactOS will eventually catch up.
|
| Also: If Windows starts getting real ugly with forced
| telemetry, cloud service integration, and deprecation of Win32
| apps, ReactOS can provide a way to continue using "Windows" in
| a productive manner without the negative side effects of ad-
| surveillance and forcing you to upgrade your PC every X
| interval like a phone.
|
| Hopefully Microsoft doesn't make any other app become basically
| unremoveable like Internet Explorer and Cortana.
| eternalny1 wrote:
| > I think with Windows 10 being the last version of Windows,
| ReactOS will eventually catch up.
|
| Windows 10 certainly isn't the "last version" of Windows in
| the sense you are thinking.
|
| Even if there is no new version number, they could likely
| just drop that and call it "Windows" from now on. I haven't
| heard of any plans to discontinue desktop development.
|
| It will just be constantly updated, as we are seeing it now.
|
| Like the major UI revamp in the works codenamed 'Sun Valley',
| due later in 2021.
|
| https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10-sun-valley-ui-
| octo...
| ransom1538 wrote:
| How dare you. It is not AS3.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| ...what does ReactOS have to do with ActionScript 3?
| betterunix2 wrote:
| What makes you think being more popular, as popular, or even a
| fraction as popular as Windows (which is used on billions of
| devices) is a goal?
|
| I can think of some niche use-cases. For example, my mother
| owns a perfectly functional printer and spent quite a lot of
| money on ink cartridges, only to have the manufacturer refuse
| to provide drivers beyond Windows 7 (and never bothered
| supporting anything but Windows). React OS could allow her to
| continue using this otherwise functioning printer until she
| runs out of ink and cannot buy any more cartridges.
|
| There are probably tons of other weird devices out there that
| are beyond their official EOL and require some previous version
| of Windows to continue to be used. There is also a lot of
| software that people depend on but which is either EOL or the
| original software vendor is defunct, and React OS can provide a
| compatible environment to run that software on regardless of
| what Microsoft chooses to do with more recent versions of
| Windows. It may seem crazy and there are probably a variety of
| security issues with running unsupported software, but for some
| people the risk will be worth it.
| diegocg wrote:
| ReactOS should be pretty interesting for any Windows shop. If
| you have some in house app and you can run it in reactos, you
| can stop paying licences.
| nurb wrote:
| A bit off topic, but I'm glade to see a project like this running
| there own instance of matrix instead of the usual
| centralized/proprietary/censurable solutions.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| On the contrary, I'm sad to see them moving towards "slack
| clone" solutions rather than sticking with simple chat, a la
| IRC. I don't think adding stickers and emoticons to a
| conversation makes it any better.
| colinfinck wrote:
| We didn't do it just for the eye candy, but also for threads,
| offline messages, and user identification. I wrote down our
| reasons for moving from IRC to a self-hosted Mattermost here:
| https://reactos.org/project-news/new-discussion-platform/
|
| We never broke ties with IRC though. You can still join
| #reactos or #reactos-dev on Freenode, both are bridged to
| their corresponding Mattermost channels using Matterbridge.
|
| Our Matrix server was set up right in time for FOSDEM 2021.
| It will soon be extended to bridge to the IRC and Mattermost
| worlds, as Matrix integrates even better with Freenode's IRC
| server than Matterbridge.
|
| As an open-source project, never place your bets on a single
| third-party platform!
| sanxiyn wrote:
| Emoticons absolutely make it better, just by saving chat
| traffic for simple acknowledgements. Emoticons are also used
| as a simple way to poll, which is very useful.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| But they're annoying to type. I never end up using them
| because I'd have to go look up the icon for something, then
| copy and paste. I think phones have keyboard features or
| something, but I actively avoid typing messages from a
| phone because it's so slow. This represents another move
| towards "mobile-first" stuff, which I generally dislike.
| fiddlerwoaroof wrote:
| In slack, at least, typing a colon begins autocomplete by
| name, which is mostly how I type them: e.g. `+:+1:' to
| react to the post above me with a thumbs-up.
| sanxiyn wrote:
| You are entitled to your preferences, but let's not
| dismiss actual practical advantages of emoticon support
| in Slack-likes compared to IRC. I agree it has costs as
| well as benefits, but dismissing the real benefit is a
| bad manner.
| crb wrote:
| The way Microsoft is moving, it's feasible to think that Windows
| 2000/XP will be open sourced before ReactOS is finished.
| rbanffy wrote:
| There probably is a huge amount of code inside Windows that
| Microsoft has a license to use, but no right to open.
| hestefisk wrote:
| Yes, like old OS/2 code.
| Hamcha wrote:
| If they cared they'd try something like what OpenSolaris did
| (file-based GPL alternative so they could have copyleft on
| code but still ship binaries). I'm not advocating for another
| viral license but there are definitely ways around that
| problem. MS itself already did it in part once (WRK) so they
| clearly have looked into it at least once before.
| cormacrelf wrote:
| This is bang-on what MPL 2.0 is for
| Koshkin wrote:
| Has MS-DOS been open-sourced yet?
| easton wrote:
| Yep. https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS
| jmkni wrote:
| Wasn't the code for XP leaked a while ago? Could the ReactOS
| developers learn how things work from it?
| pizza234 wrote:
| If you're asking if they are formally allowed to do it, the
| answer is definitely no.
|
| If though, you're asking if they "can" in very generic terms,
| yes, certainly - as a matter of fact, this has been a large
| controversy of ReactOS.
|
| There are no certainties, as everybody has their own side of
| the story. An MS developer, Axel Rietschin, publicly
| expressed his opinion that there are wholesale ripped off
| (low-level) functionalities1; I personally find it
| convincing, although it's fuzzy, as he doesn't give details.
|
| 1=https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933
| MikusR wrote:
| This talk was posted in that thread
| https://youtu.be/2D9ExVc0G10
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| Quite the opposite, any developer that so much as glances at
| the leaked source code is banned from the project. The
| legality of ReactOS rests upon its developers reverse
| engineering Windows without having access to the source code.
| wongarsu wrote:
| As far as I'm aware you can however look at the leaked
| source code and use those insights to fix or write
| documentation about the behavior of the APIs and general
| behavior. You just can't write any ReactOS code yourself
| because you are tained once you've seen the leak. But I
| think the overlap between people who can extract insights
| from the leaked code and people who enjoy writing
| documentation in their free time (more than reverse
| engineering and programming) is pretty small.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> As far as I 'm aware you can however look at the
| leaked source code and use those insights to fix_
|
| You can, but if your solution is at all like theirs the
| onus will be on you (what-ever legal team you can afford
| against their 800lb gorilla) to prove that you didn't
| copy it.
|
| It is far safer not to look at all, and IIRC ReactOS's
| developer guidelines prohibit their devs from doing so
| for the avoidance of doubt.
|
| _> or write documentation about the behavior of the APIs
| and general behavior._
|
| What Compaq did to implement the behaviour of IBM's BIOS
| (the only part of the original PC that wasn't off-the-
| shelf) was to double-clean-room. Two completely separate
| teams were on the job: in one "clean room" they analysed
| the chip's behaviour in detail and documented everything
| significant, and in the other a team implemented a design
| that mimicked said behaviour.
|
| I doubt the ReactOS team have the resources to properly
| pull this off for something as large as the Windows
| source code though, and even if they did that still
| wouldn't get close to their target of Win2003 & later
| compatibility (there have been some significant changes
| to parts of the driver model since the XP days).
| theonemind wrote:
| I forget the details, but generally, no. They want a clean
| room implementation, so if you've seen the code, you might
| even unconsciously copy it. They've taken license matters
| very seriously, so ReactOS devs would probably actively avoid
| looking at the code for the legal safety of the project.
| 1f60c wrote:
| Maybe they could do something like Drew DeVault did with
| their TrueCraft project:
| https://github.com/ddevault/TrueCraft#get-involved
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-02-09 23:02 UTC)