[ros-dev] The WRK and what it means for ReactOS

[David Johnson]

Use it in it's entirety. This would speed up the entire audit project. Also,
it would make a lot of problems go away. Maybe we can have a 0.30 ROS
distribution. I don't care if a tag line of: WRK copyright (R) 2006
Microsoft Corp.


I do not care.
I want to see a PowerPC ReactOS version. I am working on a design for a
Mini-ITX form factor PowerPC G4 1Ghz motherboard to run ROS.



On 3/20/06, Alex Ionescu <ionucu at videotron.ca> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Later this spring, Dave Probert's project will finally be complete with
> the realease of the WRK to academia, which means that almost any student
> such as I, Brandon, Filip, etc will have access to it. What is the WRK?
>
> The WRK (Windows Research Kernel) is Microsoft's answer to Linux/BSD
> source code used in classes. It is a special version of the NT Kernel
> designed to be used with the CRK (Windows NT Curriculum Kit) based on
> Windows Internals 4th Edition. It is a collection of about half a
> million lines of kernel code, including almost all of the process
> manager, object manager, thread scheduler, and other components
> discussed in the book. The PnP Manager, Power Subsystem, Kernel Debugger
> however are missing, as well as other specific code. This code is
> located in static libraries which are linked in at the end to create a
> complete kernel.
>
> What of the license? It is the reason why the WRK is so exciting and
> it's taken so long to come out (thank the lawyers). The license allows
> viewing, modifying and *creating derived work*, as long as any changes
> are also sent back to MS and that copyright is not misattributed.
> Additionnally, the license explicitly permits the creation of books or
> other reference material, including the presense of code snippets to
> better explain something, as well as sharing information in community
> forums. All this is allowed for any non-commercial or educational use,
> including personal research. The WRK also ships with Virtual PC, the
> build environment (similar to how we use QEMU/Dazzle for TinyKRNL) and
> full documentation for all the Native APIs.
>
> With such a wonderful thing at our disposal, how will this impact the
> kernel audit (postively)? What decisions do we take regarding the WRK?
> Do we use it? We can either use it entirely (ReactOS is, IIRC, an
> non-commercial research project, unless you still want to "vanquish the
> evil MS and sell millions"), but that would mean attributing copyright
> to Microsoft which many here would puke at. Alternatively, it can be
> used as pure documentation, which gives us all the freedom in the world.
>
> Or, we can be our true anti-MS/MS-bashing arrogants and call the WRK a
> heresy that should never be approached or used.
>
> Best regards,
> Alex Ionescu
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>



--
Dave Johnson
www.davefilms.us DaveFILMS(r)
Voice Talent
Writer, Producer, Director
Independent Audio Theater Producer
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