Element Software partnership?

[coldReactive]

coldReactive: Please be patient. The site has only just been added and bandwith limitations / cost will affect the public release of this beta. Last time we tried to upload an earlier beta the entire Element Software site went down due to people excessively downloading (however that was a 2.7gib image, the iso is now 300MB).

Please do not expect the download to be up this week, this month or even the next, the OS is still in major development, and we have to upload our modified ReactOS parts to the source code directories before we can even release any binaries of ElementOS itself.

That's why you use torrents.

[patternjake]

coldReactive:

That would violate our own terms and licensing by using torrents. Our products are for HTTP download access only.

[ironek69]

Is it (ElementOS) free or not?

[GoBusto]

Is it (ElementOS) free or not?

It seems that it'll be like MacOSX is to FreeBSD.

The lower levels of MacOSX (such as the kernel, Darwin) are based on open source FreeBSD code, with the upper levels (such as the GUI) being closed-source proprietary programs from Apple.

[patternjake]

ironek69 : Yes, the ElementOS software will be provided free of charge to download and use. The core of the system (that bieng ReactOS) will be avaliable as source code to download, modify and improve on. However the components we have developed for our version of the OS will remain closed source.

[ironek69]

It's great to hear that:)

[patternjake]

ironek69 : If you dont have the capacity to download the ISO, we are also doing a cd distrubution service at a small cost, so anyone can get this beta of the OS. And no its not time limited either.

[Haos]

When are you planning to do first public?

[ironek69]

I am afraid, that i will not buy Elementos. I am using only company laptop with xp installed, so at the moment i don't need other OS. I am just happy, that You and some of chinese devs will help. Anyway I wish you all the best.

[vicmarcal]

I am afraid, that i will not buy Elementos.

Eing??From the previous post:

ironek69 : the ElementOS software will be provided free of charge to download and use.

[ironek69]

Sorry. My mistake. I meant, that i will not buy cd with E-OS on it, and i am aware, download will be avalaible for all free of charge.

[patternjake]

Haos : We dont know yet. The OS is still in major development, although many components are now finilized beta quality products. However we are aiming at a September- November release timeframe. However it will be hard work to get the OS to a good stage and release it by then. If we work hard on this you may see it by that time or early 2010.

Although theres always options to become a private tester, and you would get the milestones before everyone else, but you have to donate to become one (if you are feeling a little generous)

[PetruDimitriu]

ElementOS seems to run MS Office 2007 perfectly. ReactOS is far away of doing so. In fact, I'm afraid the installer doesn't even start up. If ElementOS is capable of running MS Office 2007 perfectly, while ReactOS is not yet able to run Yahoo! Messenger at all I guess the code you have added to provide such a great compatibility with Windows programs would really help the ReactOS project.

[Radhad]

As of GPL Licence - do they have to publish the changed sources of any ReactOS related code? I'm not so familiar with GPL Licences. The GUI could be still closed source if I'm right. Maybe someone could answer this?

[GoBusto]

As of GPL Licence - do they have to publish the changed sources of any ReactOS related code? I'm not so familiar with GPL Licences. The GUI could be still closed source if I'm right. Maybe someone could answer this?

Here's a quick and simple guide to the world of GPL licensing:

The GPL requires that the distribution of any binary files based on GPL code should be accompanied by unrestricted access to the source code itself, whether it is modified or unmodified.

Of course, many distributors will offer the "binary" and "source code" files as separate downloads in order to keep the file sizes small. However, the point is that you at least have the option of downloading the source code should you wish to.

You can charge money in order to sell GPL'd products, but you cannot sell the source code separately from the binary releases.

Simply put, an application based on GPL source code can be distributed as:

+ Source code only.
+ Source code + binary.

It cannot be distributed as:

+ Binary only.

The LGPL allows you to incorporate LGPL code into non-LGPL projects, so long as you release the LGPL'd parts as described above. So you can build a non-GPL program that uses LGPL components, such as GTK+.

The GPL allows you to incorporate GPL code into projects, so long as those projects are also licensed under the GPL. So you cannot build a non-GPL program that uses GPL'd components, such as the MySQL C API.

You can build GPL code on top of non-GPL code. This is what happens with Windows programs that are licensed under the GPL even though they are built on top of the non-GPL Win32 API.

You cannot build non-GPL code on top of GPL code. However...

You can run non-GPL programs on top of GPL programs. This is why you can run closed-source programs on GNU/Linux systems.