Why is it taking so long?
Moderator: Moderator Team
Re: Why is it taking so long?
Right, so this is an example of a pretty impressive misunderstanding and you have my apologies for that. Your previous post was very easy to read in the completely opposite way that you apparently intended.
Re: Why is it taking so long?
@RussoTuristo: Let's not go into a great detail on parts of your posts that not many had a problem with. Well, I also misread the "OSes based on the 1970s ideas" part, but that's not an issue with your English skill.
The actual FUD (or troll, depending on how knowledgeable/ignorant you are) is in these parts:
2) the ReactOS Foundation that handles most of the donation money is based in Germany, not elsewhere, though I believe that the Russian foundation has to handle the Russian-only transfer methods
3) the project and its fundraisers are open to the global community, not just the countries the foundations are based in
4) just the same, the results of the work are available to all the world under free and libre terms
5) most importantly, any and all the activity is voluntary - you can gauge the progress before taking the next step and decide for yourself whether to support the cause or not
6) you may contribute using non-financial means, such as spreading the word, submitting patches/translations or discussing on the forums
EDIT: typo
The actual FUD (or troll, depending on how knowledgeable/ignorant you are) is in these parts:
1) the aim and thus, the result, of the project is well-definedRussoTuristo wrote:The more important thing is that now ReactOS is just a money collecting project. It doesn't even intend to produce anything useful. It does nothing but try to persuade you to donate some money. (... snip ...) Any of so called "innovative" projects in Russia has only one goal - to get a government grant. A government official that gives that grant knows for sure that a project will definitely produce nothing, he just takes his share of the grant. That's called corruption, bro. (... snip ...) It's a pity that such a great idea degenerated into this shame. It's a really great loss for us all.
2) the ReactOS Foundation that handles most of the donation money is based in Germany, not elsewhere, though I believe that the Russian foundation has to handle the Russian-only transfer methods
3) the project and its fundraisers are open to the global community, not just the countries the foundations are based in
4) just the same, the results of the work are available to all the world under free and libre terms
5) most importantly, any and all the activity is voluntary - you can gauge the progress before taking the next step and decide for yourself whether to support the cause or not
6) you may contribute using non-financial means, such as spreading the word, submitting patches/translations or discussing on the forums
EDIT: typo
Re: Why is it taking so long?
Could you please tell me and all of us, your motive for this post?RussoTuristo » 07 Apr 2014 19:27
Please keep the Windows classic 9x/2000 look and feel.
The layman's guides - debugging - bug reporting - compiling - ISO remaster.
They may help you with a problem, so do have a look at them.
The layman's guides - debugging - bug reporting - compiling - ISO remaster.
They may help you with a problem, so do have a look at them.
Re: Why is it taking so long?
That seems to happen more then once!Z98 wrote:Right, so this is an example of a pretty impressive misunderstanding and you have my apologies for that. Your previous post was very easy to read in the completely opposite way that you apparently intended.
RussoTuristo wrote:Well, you might say that if I'm so "unwarrantably negative" about ReactOS, I shouldn't post anything here at all. But you would be wrong. Because I'm not against ReactOS ideas or developers. I really really think that all those people who have been devoting their time and energy to Linux development could've given humanity much more profit if they had developed a Windows compatible open source OS. Instead of it, they continue to support a group of OSes that are based on the 1970s ideas.What you're doing here, is not merely giving criticism, let alone constructive criticism, but being unwarrantly negative about it.
So, I would be one of the most active zealots of such an OS if it existed or even were about to be born. Unfortunately, ReactOS completely ruined these my hopes. So I'm not criticizing. I'm just really disappointed. That's why I joined this forum and made my posts here.
As far as expressing an opinion goes, I'm a libertarian at heart, so I think you may express it (caveat: I'm not a moderator). Only, I think one should not be surprised to get a reaction too. Personally, I don't give much value to a 'mere opinion', because they do not lead to anything, and you even can't discuss it properly, because it lacks any arguments.
"I don't like it, period'
'I do, period.'
Is basically to what amounts such posts, without there being any substantiation. It doesn't lead to anything fruitful, and as a mere venting of frustration it's only useful on a strictly personal level. Let's face it, if everyone tried to vent whatever irrational feeling was plaguing them, it would become a madhouse instead of a discussion-thread.
And...it seldom is *merely* the venting of an opinion. Yes, you pointed out your disillusion and frustration, but you also said why. The moment you do that, you give arguments, and those arguments can be scrutinized. This is why I responded by saying that claiming 'ROS is dead' is factual incorrect, and more so now than it used to be. I also can't follow you completely in the 'money-grabbing' thing you seem to make an issue of. Yes, there are many volunteers working on linux, being paid nothing. So are there on ROS. I think there is only 1-2 being paid, here? Most do it completely free. At the end, though, it doesn't really matter if it's 'pure' voluntary, or if there are some paid devs in it. As long as the donation-issue is open and transparent, and people know what and why they give their money, it doesn't really matter. It's not like we're being brainwashed. Some other open-source projects have paid devs too, btw. More of importance is the question if it helps development further, and how it helps the project the most, with a certain amount as budget (which is limited).
It's not about being 'pure' and financially un-supported, it's about getting things done faster. True, there are grey area's, and I've been critical about how money is spend too in the past (and now), but I don't have any problem with the principle of it.
Thus, why I said 'unwarranted' was not because I deny you the right to say your feelings about it, but because the (meagre) substantiation you gave in the form of arguments didn't make much sense. There is a difference between feeling disillusioned because after such a time it can't deliver what you expected from it, or saying 'ROS is dead' and come up with the Russian money-grabbing (non-)issue.
Last edited by Webunny on Wed Apr 09, 2014 10:58 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Re: Why is it taking so long?
I found ReactOS when I was looking for an alternative to Windows XP.
Since years I have been told to switch to Linux. Puppy Linux was fine, with a life USB I could look for solutions on the Web when a virus struck my Windows XP, but, believe it or not, I didn't find out how to save a file or copy a file to a chosen destination.
Some weeks ago, when I was aware about Microsoft abandoning XP support today, I asked at c.l.f. "Does anybody use Windows XP ?" - to arise awareness and to get answers about alternatives. I got several suggestions to use Linux.
I ordered CD's of a dozen different Linux distributions. Some worked on my laptop, some did not. The best candidate for a change was PCLinuxOS, but there have been problems with the media player. To stay in contact with my homeland Germany, I like to see ARD and ZDF - that worked for ten minutes, then it stalled.
Then somebody mentioned ReactOS, and since then I am a fan of ReactOS, because I think this is a great endeavour, and I admire all you people who are doing this work.
I am to old to learn this kind of programming. Since 1984 my programming language, on microcontrollers and on PCs, is Forth. That's all what I need. And Win32Forth, my favorite flavor, is already running an ReactOS. If I would be able to download over the Internet, I really would be happy.
Today I discovered the Buildbot, and I shouldn't suggest Forth to support programming and testing ReactOS, because Buildbot is a huge machine which does support development very well, I guess - even if Win32Forth could do the same.
Since a long time I like to change some annoying behaviour of Windows, and I hope that with ReactOS there will be a possibility to adjust its behaviour to my personal preferences.
I am testing ReactOS Life since a few days, and today I discovered that the recent build brought great success.
On Sunday I had to be very careful when moving the cursor, and today it's much faster - or may be I am better used to it now.
Is there somewhere a blog available, telling about progress made and expected next steps?
I once did such a kind of blog: http://visualforth.blogspot.com
Since years I have been told to switch to Linux. Puppy Linux was fine, with a life USB I could look for solutions on the Web when a virus struck my Windows XP, but, believe it or not, I didn't find out how to save a file or copy a file to a chosen destination.
Some weeks ago, when I was aware about Microsoft abandoning XP support today, I asked at c.l.f. "Does anybody use Windows XP ?" - to arise awareness and to get answers about alternatives. I got several suggestions to use Linux.
I ordered CD's of a dozen different Linux distributions. Some worked on my laptop, some did not. The best candidate for a change was PCLinuxOS, but there have been problems with the media player. To stay in contact with my homeland Germany, I like to see ARD and ZDF - that worked for ten minutes, then it stalled.
Then somebody mentioned ReactOS, and since then I am a fan of ReactOS, because I think this is a great endeavour, and I admire all you people who are doing this work.
I am to old to learn this kind of programming. Since 1984 my programming language, on microcontrollers and on PCs, is Forth. That's all what I need. And Win32Forth, my favorite flavor, is already running an ReactOS. If I would be able to download over the Internet, I really would be happy.
Today I discovered the Buildbot, and I shouldn't suggest Forth to support programming and testing ReactOS, because Buildbot is a huge machine which does support development very well, I guess - even if Win32Forth could do the same.
Since a long time I like to change some annoying behaviour of Windows, and I hope that with ReactOS there will be a possibility to adjust its behaviour to my personal preferences.
I am testing ReactOS Life since a few days, and today I discovered that the recent build brought great success.
On Sunday I had to be very careful when moving the cursor, and today it's much faster - or may be I am better used to it now.
Is there somewhere a blog available, telling about progress made and expected next steps?
I once did such a kind of blog: http://visualforth.blogspot.com
Re: Why is it taking so long?
Blogs are located on the ReactOS home page. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see them. A series of newsletters describing the long saga of ReactOS progress are also available. Newsletter 99 is the last issue, after that issue ReactOS blogging changed to a multiple-author, single subject per entry format. The Newsletters link is broken but there is a newsletter archive of all the issues in all the languages available.Bluebee wrote:Is there somewhere a blog available, telling about progress made and expected next steps?
The Roadmap page in the ReactOS wiki reveals some of the expected next steps of the ReactOS project. That page describes the developer team's hopes for ReactOS in the near term. However, as the Roadmap page says, "For an open source community it's really hard to give a fixed roadmap..." The Roadmap is partially out of date and parts of it are too optimistic.
The Missing ReactOS Functionality wiki page describes the work needed to make ReactOS feature-complete and more stable.
I hope these links are useful to you. Welcome to the ReactOS Community.
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- Posts: 9
- Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2014 1:48 am
Re: Why is it taking so long?
oldman
The main reason is to understand why the ReactOS project is there, where it is. I’m a curious person. A little bit curious. Although I don’t really need this understanding (it’s not going to help my carrier or personal life), I’d like to get it.
I hope it’s obvious that I’m NOT insisting that you have to explain anything to anybody. Especially to such a nerd like me. So, I don’t even ask anything. I just publish my humble opinion. You’re free to ignore it.
I often have a discussion with my friends about the current situation in software industry. Yes, we Russians really like to chatter for nothing. We sometimes had special olympics on “Linux vs. Windows”. And I wondered why Linux, an open source alternative to Unix, has so many active developers and supporters while ReactOS, an open source alternative to Windows, doesn’t. I shared my thoughts about it with my friends and then I asked myself “why hadn’t I asked the ReactOS community?” So, I’m here.
I really don’t get it why so many people like to spend their time to develop Linux while there was only one attempt to develop an open source OS, based on Windows ideas. And that attempt didn’t gain enough supporters to become more just than a concept. Yes, I know that the ReactOS project has now a compiled OS that can even be installed and you can even launch some programs on it. That’s great. But I found it impossible to use this OS as a workplace. And not only I, many people, who tried ReactOS, didn’t find it suitable for everyday use. So, I’m not alone. Please don’t think that I complain or something. That’s not a complain, or criticism. By telling that ReactOS can’t yet be used as a working OS, I only intended to tell that ReactOS is now in its very early development stage. Is it bad? Of course, it’s not bad. No one says that being in an early development stage is bad. (We all were in that stage, so there’s nothing wrong with that.) No one says that the incompleteness, for instance, of Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant is bad. We can say that it’s in its early construction stage. So, it’s not a matter of judging. It’s just a matter of understanding that this building can’t be used as a power plant.
So, ok, if you don’t like my definition of ReactOS’s state as a “concept stage” I can rename it “early development stage”.
But let’s return to question “Unix-like OS vs. Windows-like OS”.
The root of my puzzlement about why there’s no mature and popular project on development an open source Windows-like OS is this. Imagine a young boat engineer who’s looking for a job. He can get a job in a big company, which builds large ocean liners powered by atomic reactors. ^_^ They have already built many ships with a four-blue-rectangle logo that are widely used all over the world. But they don’t share their drawings with the rest of the world. ^_^ ^_^ The young engineer is convinced that it’s not fair and decided to find a shipyard that doesn’t hide the drawings in a safe. Surprisingly, but such a shipyard exists. They also can build ships. But they use wood as a construction material and steam engines. When he asked them, “Why don’t you use metal, glass and electricity in your ships?” they told him that when they started their business they were aware of wooden ships only. “But just a couple of years later The Big Shipyard began to build steel ships. They demonstrated that building steel ships was possible, and it would definitely become a mainstream. Why didn’t you switch to steel and electricity in your construction process those days, and continued to use wood?” “We like wood”, they replied.
Later that young engineer found another shipyard. They declared that they would use modern construction materials and modern construction technics, because they saw the ships that The Big Shipyard had built, and they wanted to build something like that. Their claim sounded reasonable.
Surprisingly, all new boat engineers wanted to work for the wooden open-drawing shipyard. Only a few engineers decided to join to the modern open-drawing shipyard. Several years later, the first shipyard was able to build caravels. The second one still didn’t find enough employees.
This is a thing that I can’t understand. If I were a young boat engineer, I would find it ridiculous to devote my time and efforts to building of wooden ships. So why did all of them favor old wooden ships over modern steel ships?
That was my crazy fairy tale. ^_^
The thing I wanted to say was:
I think that the ReactOS project founders’ idea was right. If one wants to create an open-source OS, it would be stupid to use old concepts and design for that. One should use modern ideas that are more promising for the new OS, especially when he can see a marvelous paragon.
However, after 18 years of development ReactOS is in its early development stage (EDS) ^_^ As I said, I don’t think that it’s bad. It’s not bad. It just shows that ReactOS doesn’t seem to become a full-fletched OS someday. If it were in its EDS after 5 years, that wouldn’t show that I said. 10 years? Who knows… But if it’s in EDS after almost 20 years of development, that probably does show it will never mature. And that’s a pity.
Again, it’s only my humble opinion.
Black_Fox
If you have an aim, it doesn’t automatically imply that you’ll reach it and get a result.
ReactOS Deutschland e.V. goes after the Russian ReactOS Foundation.
Well, maybe there’re two organizations, and people should be care when they transfer their money? ^_^ Anyway, I’m not against any of them. I’m not going to advise people to give or not to give their money or anything else to any of those organizations. I just noticed the fact that The ReactOS Foundation is a Russian organization and mentioned it, added some details that non-Russians can be unaware of.
Items 3,4,5 – no objection.
Webunny
When I posted my first message here, I didn’t expect it will have any feedback. It appeared it had a feedback. So, now I’m trying to go into details of my opinion.
A little remark. To be more precise and look less ignorant, I officially lower the age of ReactOS in all my posts. I presumed that the ReactOS project started in 1996. I’d like to correct myself and admit that it would be more fair to use February 1998 as the ReactOS birth date. So, ReactOS is not 18 years old, it’s only 16 years old. However, 16-year development process looks as productive as 18-year one.
Again, I’m not criticizing you, I’m just wondering “why?” Because I’m curious and because I like ReactOS’s idea.
Okay, I’ll try to explain.Could you please tell me and all of us, your motive for this post?
The main reason is to understand why the ReactOS project is there, where it is. I’m a curious person. A little bit curious. Although I don’t really need this understanding (it’s not going to help my carrier or personal life), I’d like to get it.
I hope it’s obvious that I’m NOT insisting that you have to explain anything to anybody. Especially to such a nerd like me. So, I don’t even ask anything. I just publish my humble opinion. You’re free to ignore it.
I often have a discussion with my friends about the current situation in software industry. Yes, we Russians really like to chatter for nothing. We sometimes had special olympics on “Linux vs. Windows”. And I wondered why Linux, an open source alternative to Unix, has so many active developers and supporters while ReactOS, an open source alternative to Windows, doesn’t. I shared my thoughts about it with my friends and then I asked myself “why hadn’t I asked the ReactOS community?” So, I’m here.
I really don’t get it why so many people like to spend their time to develop Linux while there was only one attempt to develop an open source OS, based on Windows ideas. And that attempt didn’t gain enough supporters to become more just than a concept. Yes, I know that the ReactOS project has now a compiled OS that can even be installed and you can even launch some programs on it. That’s great. But I found it impossible to use this OS as a workplace. And not only I, many people, who tried ReactOS, didn’t find it suitable for everyday use. So, I’m not alone. Please don’t think that I complain or something. That’s not a complain, or criticism. By telling that ReactOS can’t yet be used as a working OS, I only intended to tell that ReactOS is now in its very early development stage. Is it bad? Of course, it’s not bad. No one says that being in an early development stage is bad. (We all were in that stage, so there’s nothing wrong with that.) No one says that the incompleteness, for instance, of Marble Hill Nuclear Power Plant is bad. We can say that it’s in its early construction stage. So, it’s not a matter of judging. It’s just a matter of understanding that this building can’t be used as a power plant.
So, ok, if you don’t like my definition of ReactOS’s state as a “concept stage” I can rename it “early development stage”.
But let’s return to question “Unix-like OS vs. Windows-like OS”.
The root of my puzzlement about why there’s no mature and popular project on development an open source Windows-like OS is this. Imagine a young boat engineer who’s looking for a job. He can get a job in a big company, which builds large ocean liners powered by atomic reactors. ^_^ They have already built many ships with a four-blue-rectangle logo that are widely used all over the world. But they don’t share their drawings with the rest of the world. ^_^ ^_^ The young engineer is convinced that it’s not fair and decided to find a shipyard that doesn’t hide the drawings in a safe. Surprisingly, but such a shipyard exists. They also can build ships. But they use wood as a construction material and steam engines. When he asked them, “Why don’t you use metal, glass and electricity in your ships?” they told him that when they started their business they were aware of wooden ships only. “But just a couple of years later The Big Shipyard began to build steel ships. They demonstrated that building steel ships was possible, and it would definitely become a mainstream. Why didn’t you switch to steel and electricity in your construction process those days, and continued to use wood?” “We like wood”, they replied.
Later that young engineer found another shipyard. They declared that they would use modern construction materials and modern construction technics, because they saw the ships that The Big Shipyard had built, and they wanted to build something like that. Their claim sounded reasonable.
Surprisingly, all new boat engineers wanted to work for the wooden open-drawing shipyard. Only a few engineers decided to join to the modern open-drawing shipyard. Several years later, the first shipyard was able to build caravels. The second one still didn’t find enough employees.
This is a thing that I can’t understand. If I were a young boat engineer, I would find it ridiculous to devote my time and efforts to building of wooden ships. So why did all of them favor old wooden ships over modern steel ships?
That was my crazy fairy tale. ^_^
The thing I wanted to say was:
I think that the ReactOS project founders’ idea was right. If one wants to create an open-source OS, it would be stupid to use old concepts and design for that. One should use modern ideas that are more promising for the new OS, especially when he can see a marvelous paragon.
However, after 18 years of development ReactOS is in its early development stage (EDS) ^_^ As I said, I don’t think that it’s bad. It’s not bad. It just shows that ReactOS doesn’t seem to become a full-fletched OS someday. If it were in its EDS after 5 years, that wouldn’t show that I said. 10 years? Who knows… But if it’s in EDS after almost 20 years of development, that probably does show it will never mature. And that’s a pity.
Again, it’s only my humble opinion.
Black_Fox
I can’t agree with that. It’s not about ReactOS, it’s in general. My aim, for example, can be to live forever. It’s a well-defined aim. Will I succeed in doing it? I hope very much, but I’m not sure.the aim and thus, the result, of the project is well-defined
If you have an aim, it doesn’t automatically imply that you’ll reach it and get a result.
Okay… What about this?the ReactOS Foundation that handles most of the donation money is based in Germany, not elsewhere, though I believe that the Russian foundation has to handle the Russian-only transfer methods
ReactOS Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in the Russian Federation that provides support and promotion for the ReactOS Project. (...) The Foundation as a whole exists in two tiers, with the administrative body based in Russia and regional branches that handle donations in their respective regions. This structure exists because of the differences in how laws deal with transferring money to Russia from Europe and the Americas. (...) The ReactOS Foundation was established on June 5, 2002 and is based in Moscow, Russia. It is registered as a non-profit organization under Russian Federation law.
Aren’t they all Russians?Executive OfficersBoard of Directors
- Maxim Osowski, CEO
- Aleksey Bragin, President
- Vladimir Bragin
- Saveliy Tretiakov
- Alexey Ivanov
ReactOS Deutschland e.V. goes after the Russian ReactOS Foundation.
Well, maybe there’re two organizations, and people should be care when they transfer their money? ^_^ Anyway, I’m not against any of them. I’m not going to advise people to give or not to give their money or anything else to any of those organizations. I just noticed the fact that The ReactOS Foundation is a Russian organization and mentioned it, added some details that non-Russians can be unaware of.
Items 3,4,5 – no objection.
Well, I’m trying to spread the word by discussing on forums…you may contribute using non-financial means, such as spreading the word, submitting patches/translations or discussing on the forums
Webunny
Absolutely agree. I like reactions!Only, I think one should not be surprised to get a reaction too.
No objection.and you even can't discuss it properly, because it lacks arguments.
When I posted my first message here, I didn’t expect it will have any feedback. It appeared it had a feedback. So, now I’m trying to go into details of my opinion.
Why do I suspect that you really wanted to say here that I did not say the reason of my frustration? If it’s the case then I permit myself to state it once more. I’m disappointed because the only one project that intended to create a modern open-source OS (more than that, a Windows-compatible OS!) couldn’t do it. That’s just a fact, and nothing more. I didn’t even try to be criticizing. I didn’t say I’m angry, did I? I just said that it would be good if there were an open-source Windows-compatible OS. It’s a pity that there’s not.Yes, you pointed out your disillusion and frustration, but you also said why.
Okay, you’re right. It’s really incorrect. Well, all of us (okay, some of us) like to use strong expressions. So do I. So, I might say, “I venture to guess that ReactOS will unlikely become a useable OS someday, since it’s still in its early development stage after 18 years of development.” Instead of that I said, “ReactOS is merely dead.” Well, I admit, I was wrong. It’s not dead. But will it be really alive someday? After 18 years of existing, it’s not yet usable, so I have doubts about its shiny future.This is why I responded by saying that claiming 'ROS is dead' is factual incorrect
I just told you how it’s being done here in Russia. Nothing more.I aslo can't follow you completely in the 'money-grabbing' thing.
Did I say that? You have my apologies, if any of my words made such an impression.It's not like we're being brainwashed.
Well, I don’t feel disillusioned, because I didn’t have illusions about ReactOS. And I didn’t expect anything from it. More than that, I got aware of ReactOS existence only in 2005 or so. It was its 8th or 9th birthday and the baby looked very bad. So I didn’t expect anything. But now, when the ReactOS community tries to attract public attention with their upcoming 0.4.0 release, I, as a part of the public, was attracted too ^_^ So I’m here.There is a difference between feeling disillusioned because after such a time it can't deliver what you expected from it
A little remark. To be more precise and look less ignorant, I officially lower the age of ReactOS in all my posts. I presumed that the ReactOS project started in 1996. I’d like to correct myself and admit that it would be more fair to use February 1998 as the ReactOS birth date. So, ReactOS is not 18 years old, it’s only 16 years old. However, 16-year development process looks as productive as 18-year one.
Again, I’m not criticizing you, I’m just wondering “why?” Because I’m curious and because I like ReactOS’s idea.
Non-issue, you think? Okay, I don’t insist. It’s just a piece of information. You’re free to ignore it. But who knows, maybe someone will decide not to ignore it?and come up with the Russian money-grabbing (non-)issue.
Last edited by RussoTuristo on Sat Apr 12, 2014 3:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Why is it taking so long?
In my opinion we can easily agree the ReactOS's aim is a bit better detailed/specified and the result far more attainable than your forever-living one It's like jogging each day and hoping to reach marathon-length jog. Hard, but definitely not impossible, progress can be tracked.RussoTuristo wrote:I can’t agree with that. It’s not about ReactOS, it’s in general. My aim, for example, can be to live forever. It’s a well-defined aim. Will I succeed in doing it? I hope very much, but I’m not sure.the aim and thus, the result, of the project is well-defined
If you have an aim, it doesn’t automatically imply that you’ll reach it and get a result.
That's true. It remains to be seen whether spreading your choice of words is a contribution to the project, per se.RussoTuristo wrote:Well, I’m trying to spread the word by discussing on forums…you may contribute using non-financial means, such as spreading the word, submitting patches/translations or discussing on the forums
I agree with all the quoted information, it's correct. You quoted only half of it, however, let me quote the other half:RussoTuristo wrote:Okay… What about this?the ReactOS Foundation that handles most of the donation money is based in Germany, not elsewhere, though I believe that the Russian foundation has to handle the Russian-only transfer methods(... snip with foundation members ...)ReactOS Foundation is a non-profit organization registered in the Russian Federation that provides support and promotion for the ReactOS Project. (...) The Foundation as a whole exists in two tiers, with the administrative body based in Russia and regional branches that handle donations in their respective regions. This structure exists because of the differences in how laws deal with transferring money to Russia from Europe and the Americas. (...) The ReactOS Foundation was established on June 5, 2002 and is based in Moscow, Russia. It is registered as a non-profit organization under Russian Federation law.
Aren’t they all Russians?
ReactOS Deutschland e.V. goes after the Russian ReactOS Foundation.
Well, maybe there’re two organizations, and people should be care when they transfer their money? ^_^ Anyway, I’m not against any of them. I’m not going to advise people to give or not to give their money or anything else to any of those organizations. I just noticed the fact that The ReactOS Foundation is a Russian organization and mentioned it, added some details that non-Russians can be unaware of.
(the emphasis is mine). That leaves us with two possible questions 1) Donations from Africa and non-CIS Asia are not explicitely covered, which foundation handles it? Based on the sheer PayPal and bank-transfer reach, I guess the German one. 2) Shouldn't there be links leading to some documents where the Foundation Charters are mentioned?The ReactOS Deutschland e.V. is a non-profit organization registered in Rheda-Wiedenbrück, Germany on January 24. 2009. It is responsible for handling donations from the Americas and the European Union and various other development and promotional activities in the EU.
Executive Officers
- Matthias Kupfer, President
- Daniel Reimer, Vice-President
- Colin Finck, Treasurer
But I guess these two questions are not that important for this discussion. What do you hope to achieve with your well-presented opinion? I mean, is it an effort to change the course of the project or the opinion of its community, or is it (as Czechs say) "a shout in the darkness" without an ultimate objective?
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- Posts: 9
- Joined: Mon Apr 07, 2014 1:48 am
Re: Why is it taking so long?
Well, they are not a contribution to the project, they are just my vision of it. Does your forum only permit posts that are a contribution to the project?It remains to be seen whether spreading your choice of words is a contribution to the project, per se.
Who knows, maybe some of the project members or some of its potential members will conclude, after reading my "shout in the darkness", that it's time to really start... Well, no, they don't have to start anything, because they have already been doing something within these 16 years. So, maybe in year 2030, which is 16 years ahead from now, my children will see an open-source Windows-compatible OS. Will it then matter? Who knows...What do you hope to achieve with your well-presented opinion? I mean, is it an effort to change the course of the project or the opinion of its community
Re: Why is it taking so long?
Huh, it looks like the links to the charters got lost after the website migration. Will need to fix that.
Re: Why is it taking so long?
Maybe you should see the slow progress of ReactOS as a sign that you should start to help. If ReactOS got a line of code for every person that argumented they should be more on par but did nothing about it, it would be much more advanced than Windows by nowRussoTuristo wrote: Who knows, maybe some of the project members or some of its potential members will conclude, after reading my "shout in the darkness", that it's time to really start... Well, no, they don't have to start anything, because they have already been doing something within these 16 years. So, maybe in year 2030, which is 16 years ahead from now, my children will see an open-source Windows-compatible OS. Will it then matter? Who knows...
Also, you are misjudging Linux. Being conceptually based on UNIX doesn't mean it's obsolete, nor does it mean that it follows all of its ideas, including the obsolete ones. For a start, Linux is just the kernel, and it only needs to provide a basic set of functionality, like the NT kernel only provides the ground for a Windows OS. Most of the interesting things (like almost all of the UI related thingies and the APIs used by user-facing programs) are on user space, which Linux is not. The *nix world is moving on with the user space to more modern approaches than they used back in the day. They are finally about to switch X (the most obsolete piece of crap use in the *nix world, which handled windowing) for a more modern system called Wayland (and something else but pretty much similar called Mir, in the case of Ubuntu). That's pretty much all that is missing for Linux and the BSDs to be considered modern. They have their share of problems, and there are things Windows do better, and I'm not denying that. Android is actually Linux based, for example, and it has its defects but being "obsolete" is not one of them. You also seem to think most Linux devs work for free. You are so, so, SO ABSURDLY wrong with that assertion.
http://royal.pingdom.com/2012/04/16/lin ... t-numbers/
You can see there that we only need to take Red Hat and Intel into consideration to get more paid developers than hobbyist ones.
On your question as to why they do develop Linux more than ReactOS, that one is actually easy. Linux came first. Linux came before Windows was THAT interesting. A UNIX-like OS was the dream, back then. Windows NT, IIRC, was meant to compete with UNIX-based OSes, that was the bar, that's how good UNIX was considered back in the day. OS/2 was around that same goal, too. Older Windows weren't really that good, those weren't much more than GUIs on top of DOS, and that was a lousy OS that got the work done for the kind of cheap computer that one was able to get home, mostly. UNIX and the likes were thought for more powerful and more real-work computers of that time. It's also important to note that you seem to think Linux is pretty much the same thing it was when it started (back then it really tried to be close to UNIX like OSes more than it does now, and so did the distributions based on it). That's pretty much like saying Windows 8.1 is pretty much the same thing Windows NT 3.11 for Workgroups was. Yeah, they share the base design for the kernel, but most of the API changed, the driver model is a lot different and changed several times, even the recommended way to allocate memory changed since then.
It'd be good if you actually tell me what ideas do you think Linux keeps from the 70's. And more importantly, what do you understand by "Linux".
Last edited by mrugiero on Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Why is it taking so long?
Of course not, there's no such requirement. My original quoteRussoTuristo wrote:Well, they are not a contribution to the project, they are just my vision of it. Does your forum only permit posts that are a contribution to the project?
was meant as an answer to your money-based concerns. But as can be seen from the discovery of missing charters, this discussion already has made a contribution.you may contribute using non-financial means, such as spreading the word, submitting patches/translations or discussing on the forums
There aren't many devs who have been with the project all the 16 years, I suppose there are actually very few, if any. Your initiative timing coincides with the project fundraising attempts to accelerate the development by actually hiring people instead of them only producing code in their free time after daily job, so there may be a visible improvement coming. As the project matures and more debugging and development aids are usable, the speed of advancement will hopefully increase as well.RussoTuristo wrote:Who knows, maybe some of the project members or some of its potential members will conclude, after reading my "shout in the darkness", that it's time to really start... Well, no, they don't have to start anything, because they have already been doing something within these 16 years. So, maybe in year 2030, which is 16 years ahead from now, my children will see an open-source Windows-compatible OS. Will it then matter? Who knows...
Re: Why is it taking so long?
It'd be good if you actually tell me what ideas do you think Linux keeps from the 70's.
Well....... You'd be surprised. Linux also supports UPPERCASE ONLY LOGINS, if you happen to not have a lowercase-enabled terminal. Now how 70s is THAT? And you have no problem at all getting over acoustic couplers, I've done that already.
Moreover, e.g. tar takes options without "-", because at the time tar was first created, there was no clear convention yet how to supply options.
On a more serious level, the distinction that e.g. the network is NOT to be found under /dev is a relict from the 70s. Originally, Unix hat this thingy that "everything is a file", but they did not stick to that principle - as new technologies became available (like networking), they became "somehow attached" to the core Unix OS. That violated some principles, but ... it worked, so it stuck. And Linux copied it - 70s again. Plan 9 tried to change that (but Plan 9 itself was "trying to be incompatible" out of the arrogance for being so "novel"). Ideas from Plan 9 WERE, however, adopted back into Linux - such as the /proc "filesystem".
As to ReactOS: you all will have to admit, despite all whining, this project is taking an ETERNITY already. If anybody made his girlfriend pregnant when this project was conceived, that kid could nowadays help you coding! - So I really hope that fundraiser will take ReactOS somewhere.
Linux is not the only Unixoid around. Just see NetBSD. It was actually OLDER than Linux (at least, "immediate predecessor"-wise). But it failed to perform and became much, much less attractive than it seemed at a point. Yes, it still exists, and yes, it is one of my favourite OSes. But its path is not to be envied. So ReactOS should beware to follow the path of Linux rather than of NetBSD.
Another example of not-THAT-good progress of late is, unfortunately, Haiku OS. It's great, really. But they got themselves into such a mess that they are still stuck at an alpha over a year old. This is simply ridiculous. And people mention that to them ... they react harsh. Like, "whine-whine-cry-cry, we are SOOO overworked". As in real life, that is simply not attractive, nor professional.
Re: Why is it taking so long?
Well, true it has been a long time, if you really start counting from the early ages. But back then, I think it was more dabbling with one foot into the coding, and not a very serious, concentrated effort by most devs on there. It was more 'hack&get around' code. I remember, in fact, that at a certain point, new versions were LESS compatible with older ones, on an application level, because all the hacks to let certain 'golden' applications move were removed or didn't work anymore, because one made the decision to clean up and make the code truly MS windows compatible from the ground up, instead of continuously hacking and deviating from it just to let some apps work. In my opinion, this was a correct decision, because ultimately, a more similar code for a compatibility 'clone' like ROS will be able to run all apps, the more it nears the 100% compatibility mark. ,And then all those apps would work anyhow, and as they should. Continuing to hack and use backdoors and 'going around' problems just to be able to make *some* apps work, was a dead end.
In a sense, one could say true development of ROS only started then, and that was for the last 3-4 years only. Granted, this is a bit arbitrary. But it always is. One could even say it's way longer than 16 years, if you take the period that it still tried to be Win98 with that too.
But less arbitrary is the fact that ROS actually DID make a lot of progress the last 2-3 years, compared to the whole period before it. I'm not sure if this is due to the decision made that I talked about above, or to new devs coming in, or to things like the GSoC, or a combination of those, but if you look at the graph here: http://community.reactos.org/index.php/ ... eactos-0-4 , you see a remarkable improvement from ROS 0.3.9 to 0.3.15. Also, the site, the devs (especially PR) and the community as a whole have become much more active than before. That why I have difficulty with the claim 'ROS is dead'. Ok, the parent poster acknowledged this was somewhat hyperbole, but that wasn't my main point (I mean, I knew that). The point was rather that of all times, THIS is one of the least justified claims to be made. If you had said that 6-7 years ago, I could have agreed to it more: back then, there was very little progress being made in ROS, the devs were even far more closed off than now, the forum hardly got any activity, the mainpage of the site gave the impression of being dead and no news (let alone blogs) was readable in a long time, etc. But, one has to acknowledge the good things too: on all these fronts, ROS has become much better. Especially the last few years. So to NOW say ROS is dead is pretty misplaced and unwarranted, even if one gives waylay for it being an exaggeration.
On itself, though, depending on where you set the line, one can not deny that the development of ROS took a really, really long time. And we're still in alpha stage, true. So I can understand where you're coming from, if you only count these factors in. I guess the problem remains resources. Where linux got more and more traction and dozens and even hundreds upon developers at some point - especially once big companies showed interest and took it up, ROS remains a niche market in that domain. We do not attract dozens and dozens of devs knowledgeable in NT: most of those just work for MS to begin with. There has also not been a commercial/company intake on it; maybe out of lack of interest, or maybe potential lincencing/patent issues are a deterrent. Or maybe there are just OS'es enough already to fill all the needs, and the needs ROS would fill in, is already occupied by MS (certainly in regard to support) where price is of secundary importance to big companies. Whatever the reason(s) may be, we don't get the attention Linux has gotten - at least as of yet - so our development team is still more akin to the begindays of Linux. Which means not too many devs, a relatively slow progress, and modest resources in general. That said, it is getting better, especially these last year(s), as said. Once we have a treshold of a considerable fanbase and interest, the problem of resources will become less and less too, and development will speed up. It took a lot of time - which is why I focused so much in trying to enlarge the (involvement of) community with my discussion to z98 and vicamaral. Because, imho, the userbase is more than just a bypassing thing with little importance, but is actually essential to the survival of ROS. Till this day, I think most devs underestimate the importance of this, and concentrate too much on the 'coding is everything' mantra. Yes, of course coding is important; without it, you don't have ROS, but without a good fan/userbase, you can't grow neither. If you manage to capture the attention and interest of only a 1000 people more, even if they are no coders, even if they are no testers or translators or whatever: they're still 1000 potential extra donators. If they all gave 20 euro, you then have 20000 euro extra too; enough to hire or do some more stuff. Which will speed up progress too.
And while we're talking about money, I want to come back on the 'money-grabbing' Russian corruption thing. Now, I can't speak with any certainty about it, certainly not the Russian part. And while I don't doubt there is, broadly speaking, corruption in Russia (and no doubt in other countries as well) and fishing for money is very 'human' on itself, there is no real proof of any corruption or misappropriation within any of the ROS-foundation. As far as I'm aware off, at least. That said, maybe it WOULD be a good thing to be more open about it. Normally - at least in my country - a non-profit has an 'open bookkeeping', aka it is transparent and can be looked into. I'm not sure if ROS has or does do this. At least I don't remember any place where one could see the details of the financial dealings...or was that in the charters z98 speaks of too? Normally, it shouldn't be a secret of/from a non-profit to be completely transparent and open about it, and let the bookkeeping be viewed by others. Or at least by members.
Which leads to my next question: how is it, with the 'member'-situation for the ROS foundation? Normally - again, at least in my country - a non-profit has to abide by some rules and regulations considering the 'body' it constitutes. You normally have a 'board' (comprising of minimal 3 people), and you have the 'general assemblee' (aka, all the members) who voted for that board, and elect them every x years. Members normally can enter freely to a non-profit, with some potential (membership)fee being given. A good question is: how, exactly, is this with ROS? To be more concrete: say I want to become a (normal) member of ROS foundation: how would one need to proceed? How does one become a member of the board? Which and when are 'elections' hold? Etc. Who is the 'treasurer' of ROS? Can he show us the (normally simplified for a non-profit) bookkeeping?
These sort of questions being answered in an open and transparent way, would certainly alleviate the concerns that some may have in this area, like RussoTuristo. I'm actually interested in some clear answers too, in this regard. There is no reason to be secretive or vague about it, after all, and it would help to establish an open spirit about everything, including the internal workings of the ROS foundation.
In a sense, one could say true development of ROS only started then, and that was for the last 3-4 years only. Granted, this is a bit arbitrary. But it always is. One could even say it's way longer than 16 years, if you take the period that it still tried to be Win98 with that too.
But less arbitrary is the fact that ROS actually DID make a lot of progress the last 2-3 years, compared to the whole period before it. I'm not sure if this is due to the decision made that I talked about above, or to new devs coming in, or to things like the GSoC, or a combination of those, but if you look at the graph here: http://community.reactos.org/index.php/ ... eactos-0-4 , you see a remarkable improvement from ROS 0.3.9 to 0.3.15. Also, the site, the devs (especially PR) and the community as a whole have become much more active than before. That why I have difficulty with the claim 'ROS is dead'. Ok, the parent poster acknowledged this was somewhat hyperbole, but that wasn't my main point (I mean, I knew that). The point was rather that of all times, THIS is one of the least justified claims to be made. If you had said that 6-7 years ago, I could have agreed to it more: back then, there was very little progress being made in ROS, the devs were even far more closed off than now, the forum hardly got any activity, the mainpage of the site gave the impression of being dead and no news (let alone blogs) was readable in a long time, etc. But, one has to acknowledge the good things too: on all these fronts, ROS has become much better. Especially the last few years. So to NOW say ROS is dead is pretty misplaced and unwarranted, even if one gives waylay for it being an exaggeration.
On itself, though, depending on where you set the line, one can not deny that the development of ROS took a really, really long time. And we're still in alpha stage, true. So I can understand where you're coming from, if you only count these factors in. I guess the problem remains resources. Where linux got more and more traction and dozens and even hundreds upon developers at some point - especially once big companies showed interest and took it up, ROS remains a niche market in that domain. We do not attract dozens and dozens of devs knowledgeable in NT: most of those just work for MS to begin with. There has also not been a commercial/company intake on it; maybe out of lack of interest, or maybe potential lincencing/patent issues are a deterrent. Or maybe there are just OS'es enough already to fill all the needs, and the needs ROS would fill in, is already occupied by MS (certainly in regard to support) where price is of secundary importance to big companies. Whatever the reason(s) may be, we don't get the attention Linux has gotten - at least as of yet - so our development team is still more akin to the begindays of Linux. Which means not too many devs, a relatively slow progress, and modest resources in general. That said, it is getting better, especially these last year(s), as said. Once we have a treshold of a considerable fanbase and interest, the problem of resources will become less and less too, and development will speed up. It took a lot of time - which is why I focused so much in trying to enlarge the (involvement of) community with my discussion to z98 and vicamaral. Because, imho, the userbase is more than just a bypassing thing with little importance, but is actually essential to the survival of ROS. Till this day, I think most devs underestimate the importance of this, and concentrate too much on the 'coding is everything' mantra. Yes, of course coding is important; without it, you don't have ROS, but without a good fan/userbase, you can't grow neither. If you manage to capture the attention and interest of only a 1000 people more, even if they are no coders, even if they are no testers or translators or whatever: they're still 1000 potential extra donators. If they all gave 20 euro, you then have 20000 euro extra too; enough to hire or do some more stuff. Which will speed up progress too.
And while we're talking about money, I want to come back on the 'money-grabbing' Russian corruption thing. Now, I can't speak with any certainty about it, certainly not the Russian part. And while I don't doubt there is, broadly speaking, corruption in Russia (and no doubt in other countries as well) and fishing for money is very 'human' on itself, there is no real proof of any corruption or misappropriation within any of the ROS-foundation. As far as I'm aware off, at least. That said, maybe it WOULD be a good thing to be more open about it. Normally - at least in my country - a non-profit has an 'open bookkeeping', aka it is transparent and can be looked into. I'm not sure if ROS has or does do this. At least I don't remember any place where one could see the details of the financial dealings...or was that in the charters z98 speaks of too? Normally, it shouldn't be a secret of/from a non-profit to be completely transparent and open about it, and let the bookkeeping be viewed by others. Or at least by members.
Which leads to my next question: how is it, with the 'member'-situation for the ROS foundation? Normally - again, at least in my country - a non-profit has to abide by some rules and regulations considering the 'body' it constitutes. You normally have a 'board' (comprising of minimal 3 people), and you have the 'general assemblee' (aka, all the members) who voted for that board, and elect them every x years. Members normally can enter freely to a non-profit, with some potential (membership)fee being given. A good question is: how, exactly, is this with ROS? To be more concrete: say I want to become a (normal) member of ROS foundation: how would one need to proceed? How does one become a member of the board? Which and when are 'elections' hold? Etc. Who is the 'treasurer' of ROS? Can he show us the (normally simplified for a non-profit) bookkeeping?
These sort of questions being answered in an open and transparent way, would certainly alleviate the concerns that some may have in this area, like RussoTuristo. I'm actually interested in some clear answers too, in this regard. There is no reason to be secretive or vague about it, after all, and it would help to establish an open spirit about everything, including the internal workings of the ROS foundation.
Re: Why is it taking so long?
For those with "Russian" concerns...
The current IndieGoGo campaign is being done through the German Foundation. And the funds are reaching the German Foundation. So if anyone has doubts, he can feel extra-confident.
Reasons of having a Russian Foundation (among others) are:
- There are a lot of Russians interested in ReactOS. Google analytics shows that.
- While in Europe there are discussions about "software patents", in Russia there aren't (so in case Europe become idiotic because MS pushed for it, we have a place to live
free and without issues).
Regarding "corruption", there is "corruption" everywhere but usually it is about Politicians. Be sure that our ReactOS Russian Foundation is clean and non-corrupted.
I wish the ReactOS Box is full of money via donations, but heheh..it's not the case. The funds are enough to pay our servers, and probably to hire a dev or two periodically. But not much. So the money is so low that if anyone tries to "steal" a dollar, it will be easy noticeable. Again, there is corruption in all the countries (Spain, Greece, Germany, Brussels,...) and the best proof is how "Laws" are set to fit multinational operations and needs. If anyone thinks his country is corruption-free, he should look deeper(or better) and enjoy.
Btwm,German and Russian Foundations are independent, while they cooperate together, afaik.
The current IndieGoGo campaign is being done through the German Foundation. And the funds are reaching the German Foundation. So if anyone has doubts, he can feel extra-confident.
Reasons of having a Russian Foundation (among others) are:
- There are a lot of Russians interested in ReactOS. Google analytics shows that.
- While in Europe there are discussions about "software patents", in Russia there aren't (so in case Europe become idiotic because MS pushed for it, we have a place to live
free and without issues).
Regarding "corruption", there is "corruption" everywhere but usually it is about Politicians. Be sure that our ReactOS Russian Foundation is clean and non-corrupted.
I wish the ReactOS Box is full of money via donations, but heheh..it's not the case. The funds are enough to pay our servers, and probably to hire a dev or two periodically. But not much. So the money is so low that if anyone tries to "steal" a dollar, it will be easy noticeable. Again, there is corruption in all the countries (Spain, Greece, Germany, Brussels,...) and the best proof is how "Laws" are set to fit multinational operations and needs. If anyone thinks his country is corruption-free, he should look deeper(or better) and enjoy.
Btwm,German and Russian Foundations are independent, while they cooperate together, afaik.
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