Massive task, ReactOS, needs help?

[zac123]

First of all let me say i think this project is great! I cannot imagine how many man hours have gone into it so far but i would'nt want the job of couting them. So thanks to everyone that's behind the scenes trying to make this happen.

Unfortunatly i dont have the skill set required to contribute to this project, but i'd happily make a donation if it was to help speed up the completion of the first stable release.

What concerns me is this....

Will this project ever be finished? Will ReactOS ever be able to keep up with new technologies and their requirments? It strikes me there needs to be some commercial imput. I dont know the exact history but i'm pretty sure that Linux was built commercially first of all before being sold and then released out into the public domain.

So my question to the developers of ReactOS is this.....

what do you want? what do you need, to get ROS to a proper stable version that be used on an everyday machine?

Only when it gets to that stage will people stand up and say... actually i might give ROS a try instead of buying that latest MS OS.

Kind Regards,

zac

[Haos]

What is needed? Skilled people and material resources.

[EmuandCo]

maybe the money to pay one or two devs could be of use too

[Pesho]

Would be nice to have at least one full-time dev working on ROS, I'd donate for that. Forget those previous ideas of donating for a feature, why not just donate for a full-time dev to work on whatever's most necessary?

[Aeneas]

'Tis a proposal not unthought of. Yet I do fear that it might cause more envious discord than good... "I do much more commits than you, why are you getting paid and I do not?" - "My commits are few, but of much better quality than yours, why do you get paid and I do not?" etc. ad infinitum. - So far, I guess the bragging rights are more valuable than the money... "Pah! No, no, I did not work oń the hundredst game or mp3-player... I helped develop an NT-kernel/system/whatever." - I fear until we can employ 20 or so people, it is not quite feasible. Because a job needs more than payment - it needs equipment and a certain degree of security, something to base your life plans on, if only for a time. And for that, you need a size... and I believe that would be possible with a more extensive media campaign, but for THAT, in turn, you need to have something "quite presentable" as a start. - Which, I believe, means here Beta status of ReactOS, unless you wish to gamble with Fate.

[Haos]

Paying devs can take different forms, as long as you do have money. Instead of wage/salary, we could always do objective rewarding, which is getting more popular nowadays.

[Heis Spiter]

Would be nice to have at least one full-time dev working on ROS, I'd donate for that. Forget those previous ideas of donating for a feature, why not just donate for a full-time dev to work on whatever's most necessary?

Hi, I don't think that having a full-time would be that useful. Indeed, one single person can't handle the whole OS. We would have to do choices, and to select a specific part he would work on.
IMHO, money should rather be used in hardware for the project, or even in advertising. This would increase the chances of finding partners for the project.
Regards,
P. Schweitzer

[greenie]

It is difficult to get money. Blender has the fortunate option to sell training material and having working software. We have neither.
A friend works at a company that sells point of sale systems. They are currently converting from windows to a Linux system. There are a few companies that I would think are in this position.
Though we really can not say we have a working solution to entice investment.
I would have thought a full time dev would be worth it. 8 hour days 5 days a week. Can you afford it is a different thing all together.
Blender only has 4 or 5 paid devs and they originally only had 2.

So assuming you manage to fund a dev. You would need to find someone to quit their job and work on what will likely be minimum wage.(i suppose not that hard. I probably would. Much more interesting than my current programming job)

O i know. Start a company and have Reactos ATM's and reactos point of sale systems

EDIT:
I don't think hardware would be much of a problem. vm's help test different scenarios. Plus we know it won't work under normal circumstances on nearly any pc really. so the pc your developing on is as good as any. Plus who gets the hardware when everyone volunteers?

[Black_Fox]

Indeed, one single person can't handle the whole OS.

The one closest to that is called Alex Not sure, if Ionescu or Bragin.

I don't think hardware would be much of a problem. vm's help test different scenarios. Plus we know it won't work under normal circumstances on nearly any pc really. so the pc your developing on is as good as any. Plus who gets the hardware when everyone volunteers?

HW can also be buildbot and testbot, that needn't be physically owned by anybody and are useful to all.

[zed260]

well every little bit of money helps


but realisticly i think once the reactos kernal can compile itself is when your start seeing devlopment accelerate rapidly

[vicmarcal]

well every little bit of money helps


but realisticly i think once the reactos kernal can compile itself is when your start seeing devlopment accelerate rapidly

Iirc, ReactOS was able to compile itself using RosBE some time ago

[RaptorEmperor]

To answer one of zac123's original questions:

Linux was created by Linus Torvalds, initially by himself, since he was dissatisfied with MINIX, a Unix-like operating system created by one of his teachers in college, Andrew Tannenbaum. Linux itself is a Unix clone, but none of the original code originated from proprietary code. Torvalds open-sourced the code under the GNU license shortly after releasing it to the public. Linux itself was never sold as closed-source code, though there are distros that were sold commercially, such as Red Hat Linux. That may be where you are getting confused.

The whole SCO thing later on claimed Linux did have proprietary, closed-source code, but the proprietary code referred to had been previously released as open source before being merged into Linux and wasn't owned by SCO anyway, which is why SCO lost in court.

Major software vendors such as IBM didn't jump into Linux until they realized that they effectively had a free Unix they could play with instead of paying tons of money for Unix licenses. When the OS becomes functional, companies begin to notice and offer support. You could sum it as a giant corporation taking advantage of the initial work of independent developers, or supporting the underdog, or both, but that's how it works and the community as a whole benefits.

So in that regard ReactOS isn't exceptional. When I preach the Gospel of ReactOS to the masses of unconverted programmers at my college, I sum it up by telling them that ReactOS is to Windows what Linux is to Unix. What's funny is that I ran into a guy this semester who actually knew what ReactOS was before I told him, which is an encouraging sign that we're making progress.

[PascalDragon]

Linux was created by Linus Torvalds, initially by himself, since he was dissatisfied with MINIX, a Unix-like operating system created by one of his teachers in college, Andrew Tannenbaum. Linux itself is a Unix clone, but none of the original code originated from proprietary code. Torvalds open-sourced the code under the GNU license shortly after releasing it to the public. Linux itself was never sold as closed-source code, though there are distros that were sold commercially, such as Red Hat Linux. That may be where you are getting confused.

Just a small correction: Tanenbaum was never a teacher of Linus. Linus just had his book about operating systems which contained the MINIX OS as well. Linus had the chance once to meet with Tanenbaum in person, but he wasn't in his university that day. Any time else they only talked by e-mail (the famous micro- vs. macrokernel debate).

Regards,
Sven