ReactOS Forum

ged wrote:

GaeTaN wrote: BTW, who is this guy that claimed there was use of Windows code in ROS ? He was a developper ?

Harmut Birr. One of the earliest and most respected developers.

It's quite strange he said that, does someone talked with him to know why he said that ? It's strange he would just say that without proof or anything

I just hope that this won't be the end of reactos...

GaeTaN wrote:It's quite strange he said that, does someone talked with him to know why he said that ? It's strange he would just say that without proof or anything

He did not want to blame anyone, i'd say.

GaeTaN wrote: BTW, who is this guy that claimed there was use of Windows code in ROS ? He was a developper ?

Not source code, disassembly. That is a difference.

Dr. Fred wrote:Not source code, disassembly. That is a difference.

Because there is disassembly code in ReactOS ???
I said source code because I was watching the topic title I guess

I said source code because I was watching the topic title I guess

I guess it's my fault to a tiny bit, but to abandon it a bit, I have to say, that the svn comment of hbirr statet "Windows code".

That's why I named the topic this way.

Now it's clear it is a question about disassembling and refactoring to c-code.

I don't know much about laws, but I know that in some countrys it is illegal to
dissasemble programs.

Don't know how this affects ReactOS.

Regards Mark

Reverse engineering is legal in both the US and EU under certain circumstances. As long as these circumstances are respected there's no problem. I however do believe that certain things could only become so close to windows because of a lot absolutely unnecessary (and most likely illegal) reverse engineering.

I was about to do the same as Hartmut did and leave a few months ago, but eventually decided against leaving. Now I'm no longer sure whether contributing to ReactOS is a good thing. Maybe I should jump on the same train as EA and Hartmut and move on. There's other projects worth contributing to that aren't such a big risk.

I guess I don't understand, but is there some disassembled code in ROS or not ?
This whole story sound very strange...

There is some suspicious assembly code which looks identical to disassembled code from Windows. As Ged says, there is sometimes only one obvious way to implement something, so we have to check with the author what's going on. I'm sorry to be so vague, but it's still "innocent until proven guilty".

Perhaps it would be good to clean the source before MS putts their layers to sue this project in to a piece of history of the GPL movement.

If MS wants to gripe, let Xerox Parc (among nameless others they've stolen from) gripe to them. I was getting involved in this project but begged off for other reasons that had nothing to do with this topic.

I think everyone involved has the best intentions and dissasembly can lead to similar methods of execution of an idea, there's no getting around that.

In the end, even without the controversy raised, any two projects, programmed with the same goal in mind, geared to look similar, will lead to very similiar code - there is no escaping that fact.

I will continue to monitor what these guys are doing because I admire the spirit and I do believe in the end, they will succeed.

I do think MS will raise a noice if these guys get too good and too close, they know their way around a courtroom - but hopefully they can't prevail in a fair fight.

DorianC

DorianC wrote:If MS wants to gripe, let Xerox Parc (among nameless others they've stolen from) gripe to them

Microsoft might have adopted some ideas from other companies (I wouldn't call this stealing), but as long as you don't have any evidence (do you?) that they've copied code (THAT would be illegal), you shouldn't post such things.

If I didn't know I wouldn't post.

You should research before you suggest what others should or shouldn't do. I have a number of judges backing my view up.

Nonetheless, you believe what you like.

DorianC the common code from Xerox Parc is perfectly exceptable. They aquired it threw the At&t licence they aquired that had code from Xerox in with Xerox's permission. Research is important.

Please be more careful what you post we don't need the site taken down due to a court case against us. Risking the site on deformation is not worth it.

If their is some section we need and we cannot get docmentation for. We will have to setup 2 teams one to pull the code part and document its required interlinks and responces. Another team to right the replacement code. This is reverse enginering. The coders never see the source code they are replicating.

There is not much messages in the mailing lists and no more new patchs to svn since that incident some days ago...
Does development stalled?

Be patient. The best rewards come to the ones that dot the "i's" and cross the "t's". It just takes a little more time to do it the correct way. Some of you will probably see ways to improve the code once you disassemble the code. That would only be another benefit in the long term.