In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

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erkinalp
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by erkinalp »

They have already open-sourced MS-DOS. Why not open source Windows?
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Fraizeraust
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Fraizeraust »

Two plausible reasons I could think of:

1. Open-sourcing Windows would result to the possibility for competitors creating operating systems based on Windows' code which could greatly reduce the Windows market share, a big loss for Microsoft.

2. Most likely a portion of Windows code comes from other vendors with different licenses which forbid the open source of Windows as a whole.
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erkinalp
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by erkinalp »

#2 is true, but even Microsoft-only portion is valuable enough to be open-sourced. We can compensate for lack of defrag, zipfldr, pinball et al.
Microsoft could sustain its business with MS SQL sales and RedHat-style support of Windows.
-uses Ubuntu+GNOME 3 GNU/Linux
-likes Free (as in freedom) and Open Source Detergents
-favors open source of Windows 10 under GPL2
Ancient
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Ancient »

erkinalp wrote: Thu Oct 04, 2018 10:42 pm #2 is true, but even Microsoft-only portion is valuable enough to be open-sourced. We can compensate for lack of defrag, zipfldr, pinball et al.
Microsoft could sustain its business with MS SQL sales and RedHat-style support of Windows.
OS 2 failed, and it had Windows source code. Being Windows 3.1, 98 or ME won't solve that much.
theuserbl
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by theuserbl »

erkinalp wrote: Thu Oct 04, 2018 9:17 pm They have already open-sourced MS-DOS. Why not open source Windows?
The interesting point is, that Windows is the only actual relevant Operating System, where the completely OS is closed source.

- (most) Linux-Distributions: OpenSource
- (most) BSDs: OpenSource
- Android: OpenSource, only some programs on it are closed
- ChromeOS: OpenSOurce, only some programs on it are closed
- macOS: xnu kernel OpenSource
https://github.com/opensource-apple/xnu
https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-4570.71.2/
- iOS: using same kernel like macOS.
- Haiku: completly OpenSource
- Google Fuchsia, the upcomming OS: OpenSource

Interestingly Microsoft creates software, which is for other Systems OpenSource and for Windows not.
For example ProcDump for Linux
https://github.com/Microsoft/ProcDump-for-Linux
That is OpenSource.
On the other side ProcDump for Windows (which is part of the SysInternals), there is it not allowed to, decompile, disassamble, giving it away for othes, making too much copies of it, etc.

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Ancient
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Ancient »

theuserbl wrote: Fri Oct 05, 2018 10:39 am
The interesting point is, that Windows is the only actual relevant Operating System, where the completely OS is closed source.

- (most) Linux-Distributions: OpenSource
- (most) BSDs: OpenSource
- Android: OpenSource, only some programs on it are closed
- ChromeOS: OpenSOurce, only some programs on it are closed
- macOS: xnu kernel OpenSource
https://github.com/opensource-apple/xnu
https://opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-4570.71.2/
- iOS: using same kernel like macOS.
- Haiku: completly OpenSource
- Google Fuchsia, the upcomming OS: OpenSource
Binary globs are common. Google uses them to limit capability. Even a Raspberry Pi doesn't have an open source boot. The boot is a binary glob. Chromium has binary blobs. A lot of open source relies on closed source unfortunately. Intel and AMD do not release information about their security systems. Most BIOS is closed source for anything newer than 2007 or so. Management of Intel and AMD security is via binary blob in Linux, even in RoS. It's via a closed source BIOS, where firmware can open any backdoor it wants.
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dizt3mp3r
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by dizt3mp3r »

They will never open source Windows. Microsoft's intention is to create a Unified Windows Platform where the experience is the same for all devices, that experience being created by the new framework that supports multiple languages under MS's umbrella. All the UWP apps will come via the MS version of the appstore and eventually there will be no application installation at all unless it comes through the appstore. MS will make that appstore into the default and turn our current methods into (what the IOS and android world see as) side-loading.

Open sourcing Windows would break that strategy so it won't happen.
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Ancient
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Ancient »

I wonder if, IBM could be persuaded to open source OS2. That could be helpful, not an entire solution, but if OS2 was open sourced it would at least provide a template to grow some aspects of ROS.
erkinalp
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by erkinalp »

OS/2 has a completely different architecture.
-uses Ubuntu+GNOME 3 GNU/Linux
-likes Free (as in freedom) and Open Source Detergents
-favors open source of Windows 10 under GPL2
Ancient
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Ancient »

IIRC a new release of OS2 was issued in November 2017 with 2 years of support. So it ain't dead, it is windows, and it does support 64 bit multi threaded CPU's.
karlexceed
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by karlexceed »

Ancient wrote: Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:03 am a new release of OS2 was issued in November 2017 with 2 years of support. So it ain't dead, it is windows, and it does support 64 bit multi threaded CPU's.
I don't believe that this is totally correct.

The last version of IBM's OS2 (4.50) was released in 1999, and is 32 bit.
The last version of eComStation (2.1) was released in 2011, and is 32 bit.
The last version of ArcaOS (5.03) was released in August of this year, and is 32 bit but does support SMP.

All variants of OS2 support some ability to run DOS and Windows programs, but even the latest (ArcaOS) on their own website says, "...able to run OS/2, Windows 3.1, and DOS applications. ...able to run a select 32-bit Windows applications".

From Wikipedia:
ArcaOS includes a capable DOS VDM, and ships with a modified version of Windows 3.11, WinOS2, capable of running 16-bit Windows applications. It is also capable of running some 32-bit Windows applications utilizing Odin (a project based in part on Wine).
Ancient
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by Ancient »

Thanks for your reply, this caused me to check out OS/2 and where it is headed or not headed. Turns out https://www.os2world.com is aware of ReactOS, and has some discussion about various forks of OS/2 mixed in with discussion of ReactOS. See for example - https://www.os2world.com/forum/index.ph ... 573.0.html it appears there is some lamentation that OS/2 folks didn't embrace ReactOS years ago. However they seem generally as resigned to not being able to integrate with ReactOS as the folks here are with OS/2. Also OS/2 is not open source. Non-POSIX http://www.kolibrios.org/en/ and it's predecessor http://menuetos.net/ still appear to be in active development, the latter dating back about as far as ReactOS. The 64 bit version of MenuetOS appears to be closed source, but does support 64 GB of RAM with up to 32 CPU threads.

Kolibrios and MenuetOS both appear to be entirely written in assembly language. While they are not directly related to any active development of ReactOS, it is possible their scheduling for SMP, 64 bit memory management, and other aspects of scheduling to the extent they are open source, could help reduce ReactOS development time after the beta is released. It may be worth keeping in mind. It is unfortunate that POSIX has a few great development hubs, and non-POSIX systems seem to be more isolated islands. Anyway, it seemed interesting as something to take a glance at.
wdstudios
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by wdstudios »

I'm not sure how many of you already know this, but patents expire after 20 years. By the year 2021, the only parts of Windows XP that are still covered by intellectual property law will be the words "Microsoft" and "Windows".
ThFabba
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by ThFabba »

Patents are a very specific case of intellectual property. Copyright for example lasts many decades longer, so there's a lot that will still be "covered by intellectual property law" at that point.
erkinalp
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Re: In the event Microsoft decides to open source Windows

Post by erkinalp »

We should decide how we can extend Windows API while still staying compatible in a similar manner to GNU extends POSIX.
-uses Ubuntu+GNOME 3 GNU/Linux
-likes Free (as in freedom) and Open Source Detergents
-favors open source of Windows 10 under GPL2
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