Talk:ReactOS/Archive 1

Archive 1

The next Linux?

i'm surprised this isn't touted as the next linux. (written by User:165.134.155.123)

I think the two are sufficiently different in stated goals that comparison falls short in many ways. That said, from my lurking on the ReactOS developers list, the ReactOS developers seem a very mature bunch of individuals without any "grudge" against Linux per se (aside from mere personal preference for a windows-like environment than a UNIXish one). The beauty of open source software is that good ideas (and even code, when possible) is freely given and shared between any interested project developers.

--Ryanaxp 17:24, Feb 9, 2005 (UTC)

I think once it's a little more fully developed, it will appeal to a lot of people - those who want to break out of the microsoft monopoly without totally switching the type of OS that they use. --4.245.4.55 07:54, 28 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Attention to article

Someone needs to bring more attention to this OS because even they agree that they need more developers. (April 9, 2005, 9:21PM)

Wikipedia's purpose is to be an encyclopedia, it should not attempt to spur extra interest in a particular project, even if it is a good project. - James Foster 17:25, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

10oct2005:lkcl: the project will snowball anyway. the initial stages are the killer stages where you want people to stay the hell away. once networking takes off, once usb takes off, the project will go mad, and will end up suffering exactly the same problems as windows nt: too many cooks :) actually, that's unlikely to happen - this is FLOSS after all :)

Criticism section and reorg

The last paragraph of the "criticism" section (about fulfillment) doesn't really seem to fit there with the rest of the stuff, so I'm gonna try and move it... Blackcats 08:57, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think the first line of the Criticisms section is confusing: "Some critics of the ReactOS project have set forth reasons why they believe ReactOS to be a worthwhile project." ...doesn't the following text suggest the opposite? That some critics have put forth reasons why ReactOS is NOT a worthwhile project? BTW I have no opinion either way, this is just an observation. --Drewnoakes 15:43, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

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I believe you're right. I've edited the sentence. Cristan 22:28, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

In the source crazycomuters stated that the last two paragraphs don't really feal like critisism, and should be moved. I disagree: they're part of the response of the ReactOS community why they do think it's worth the effort. Cristan 07:29, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Change of compatibility goal from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows 2000

I have remove all stuff that was releated with NT 4.0 because Reactos-Developers choosed to hunt toward 2000 complatilbty now. --Dr Fred 21:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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Something about that change in the developers' focus should probably be added to the article. Maybe a history section?... 4.244.105.121 22:21, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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Frankly, many of the edits by 213.54.64.78 seem unsubstantiated at best, and many were retrograde in my opinion. For one thing, my review of the ReactOS developer's mailing list archives did not turn up any evidence of a concrete change of the initial emulation goal from Windows NT 4.0. Rather, although much of the later functionality from Windows 2000, XP and so on are being developed, that is simply because those are sub-projects that various contributors feel important and which do not detract from the previously stated goal of NT 4.0 compatibility for a future "ReactOS 1.0" release.(That is to say, it seems clear that Windows 2000 or XP or somesuch will be a future "official" emulation goal for ReactOS; however, the features of the later versions of Windows are cumulative, so reaching 4.0 compatibility may be achieved while simultaneously implementing 2000 or XP features—the two are not mutually exclusive.)
Furthermore, the other edits were largely broken English and added nothing factual—indeed, they often gutted perfectly intelligible sentences and facts, while substituting dubious facts (for example, can anyone point out support for the assertion that ReactOS is targetting an architecture known as "Xen?"); thus I reverted the article wholesale to the previous version by Blackcats, after scrutinizing the later edits for anything worth keeping (but found none).--Ryanaxp 03:12, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)

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10oct2005:lkcl: XEN is not an architecture it's a virtualisation technology, similar to vmware. and i specifically said "the tantalising possibility exists".

The title is "[ros-dev] Update reported version to Windows 2000 (Service Pack?)" from Steve Edwarts I could not find it online so I posted it here.

 Most of the dev team seems to be in agreement with bumping the reported version number to Win2k
 but if anyone has any objections speak now or forever maintain a patch. I need Win2k to be
 reported as the version number as many newer applications such as Office 2003 will not install
 unless that is the latest version. If you find any places where a function, resource or anything
 reports a value as NT4 or something ReactOS dependent please change it to match Windows 2000
 behavior. Also I propose we just report Service Pack 4.

Yes, it is only the reported version, if you do still not believe me, I'll ask on IRC, what the compatibly for 1.0 is. But I would say that ReactOs is just not that strictly organized that the 1.0 release plans ever officaly changed. (If they were ever existing)

About Xen: http://wiki.reactos.com/Xen_port

And for the grammatical and spelling errors I'm sorry I was a bit in a hurry yesterday. --Dr Fred 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I have rereverted some of my stuff (with a few minor corrections) since they were correct edits in my mind.

I did not rerevert the changes related to Windows 2000, because of the reasons Ryanaxp mentioned. But I do neither agree with the current content, sice it give the impression that ReactOs is based on "stone age software". --Dr Fred 14:27, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I removed a the first part of the history again changed the sentece

 The goal for version 1.0 was articulated as a stable implementation of a subset of Windows NT 4.0 Workstation

to just "Windows Workstation", that is and will be correct in anyway. Everything should still be proper english (since that I just removed things).

It should also be mentioned that Ryanaxp does not really have an objective view on this, because he wrote this part of the history section. I'm sorry for dropping your work but it's out of date. --Dr Fred 17:32, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Whoa, hold on there—despite any quibble we're having regarding this (rather inconsequential) bit of minutiae, there's really no grounds for you to haul off and accuse me of authorship bias. If I were the defensive type, I might get a bit miffed at being slagged off like that—lucky thing I'm the laid-back type, so I'll just ask you for an apology instead.

In any case, I'm not about to get in an edit war with an anonymous user over something like this. Although I still disagree with your assertion, and I haven't quite figured out what the e-mail you pasted above signifies, you've made your feelings known and I'm not inclined to research this any further. --Ryanaxp 18:54, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

ToDo

It would be nice if someone could update/remove update the images, because they are all outdated, except the desktop one which does not fit in "future". Screenshots can be found on http://frik85.reactos.at and the remastered logo on http://wiki.reactos.com/mf --User:213.54.71.145 14:41, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't be hard to do if you've the notion. Remember, Be Bold! --Ryanaxp 19:01, Jun 10, 2005 (UTC)

I did as ready replace a old with a OO.org one. I could not do it that day because my IP was blocked in Commons. (I did nothing wrong) --213.54.65.95 18:49, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Thank you (User:213.54.71.145) for adding the shot of OO.org. It's great that OpenOffice is working on ReactOS, and great that we now have a picture of that to show people. But I can see no good reason for removing the shot of ReactOS Explorer and Start Menu. You say that it was "old," but we need to keep it until a we have a more up to date screenshot of the same thing.

The explorer and start menu are both integral parts of the modern MS Windows GUI (as they will be in the ReactOS GUI), and who comes here to see what ReactOS is about will want to know that they have developed a working start menu and explorer. This may be old news to us, but most people don't even know that ReactOS exists, let alone that it has that. A shot like that needs to stay in the article unless for some reason the ReactOS development team decided not to have a Start Menu.

But on the bright side, I guess it's a sign that the word has been getting out about ReactOS if there are starting to be edit disputes here at Wikipedia :-) Blackcats 23:46, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I've updated the screenshots to 0.3.0 ones at wikimedia commons, so the screens are up-to-date now :). Cristan 12:46, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Official Screenshot page:

http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots

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Right now it mentions that 0.2.7 added support for some sound cards. Where is the reference for this? It is not in the official changelog. http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/ChangeLog-0.2.7

--> http://www.reactos.org/?page=dev_changelogs

Infobox

I just added an OS info box (modified from the Windows XP one) and moved a couple of the pictures into it. Everything is accurate as far as I know, but feel free to make any neccesary changes... Blackcats 20:55, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

Re: Wikipedia is not for faning the flames of a possibly untrue allegation.

While the accusations might not be true or might be considered fair use, Hartmut still made the accusation. I don't see what reason there is from not showing this.

Also this note is posted on the ros front page showing just how serious the project is taking this accusation:

Accusations have been made by some of ReactOS' own developers about certain parts of ReactOS code. The project is suspending development pending legal council. The project will resume once the issue has been rectified.

Reub2000

According to a new post on the the ros-dev mailing list, the inner circle has decided to go through the code to make sure that it is all clean room implementations. This is part of the history of ReactOS, and wikipedia isn't here to censor this type of information. Reub2000 01:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Now it is part of the history of ReactOS and as such I won't remove it. At the time I did remove it however it was speculative news, not something that should be on wikipedia.

"Criticisms" section

The criticisms section should contain:

• ReactOS's flaws, and things it cannot do (an incomplete list is under the heading "Functionality");
• Discussions on whether or not reverse-engineering software in order to create an unauthorized clone is legal; and
• whether or not the ReactOS Foundation is violating Microsoft's end-user licenses and patents.

164.106.241.152 16:08, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

If such criticisms have been published then go ahead and include and cite them.

ReactOS Audit

This is expected to set the project back by a lot as it could take years to complete the audit and rewriting of affected parts of the source code.

They started less then a month ago as I write this, and it seems like they're over halfway done (as the ReactOS website says). Permission to change, cap'n? 68.70.108.247 16:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Has anyone tried this?

Has anyone tried this operating system? and does it work with windows drivers —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.154.35.215 (talk • contribs)

I have tried it for a few minutes. What does work seems a bit shaky at the moment, but it's pretty far along in development. But really, a ReactOS mailing list would be a better choice for such questions; this talk page is for the development of the Wikipedia article. --Chris (talk) 06:45, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Why not try it out yourself? Reub2000 06:47, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

The percentage of how much of the audit is complete.

At the Functionality part of the article is the percentage listed. This is updated a little too often for my liking. Sure, it's cool if we update it after every 5% or so, but currently, it is being updated for every 0.1%. And even if it's not updated, the date is updated! This gives the article a huge history of pretty insignificant edits. I realise that now we're past 90%, 5% is a bit much, but I'd advise updating the percentage only if the new one is past another full percent. Oh, and don't forget to update the date as well.

Xen and Microsoft

In light of a recent announcement by Microsoft, the last paragraph under the Criticisms section about ReactOS working with Xen may be irrelevant. It is, at the very least, out of date.

NPOV in the Criticism Section

The criticism section does not seem to fit the bill for Neutral Point of View. Rather strong language is used in the criticism section, which furthermore does not have any citations; this makes it feel like the contributors to the article may have had an agenda in adding this “information” to the article. I have so far not seen anything myself that reflects the criticism that it isn’t a UNIX-like system. Also, see the previous section (Xen and Microsoft) where the issues regarding Xen are discussed—these are also in the criticism section.

On Portal:Free software, ReactOS is currently the selected article

(2006-09-22) Just to let you know. The purpose of selecting an article is both to point readers to the article and to highlight it to potential contributors. It will remain on the portal for a week or so. The previous selected article was PuTTY. Gronky 11:04, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The selected article has rotated again and is now Wine. Gronky 22:41, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

ReactOS website down?

The official ReactOS website seems to be unreachable. Does anyone know why it's down? - Cire, Oct, 28 2006

The topic of the #reactos channel on Freenode currently says:

ReactOS server (DNS, svn and website cache) main server is down, sorry for any inconvenience | russian based webhoster cause the downtime, fireball will switch to another hoster probably on monday

-- intgr 16:32, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

The website works again. Cristan 15:08, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Audit at 100%

The site currently states that the audit is complete. This is just a bug in the website:

IRC quote:
phoenix64: The audit is done? Woohoo... Very Happy
Christoph_vW: no
phoenix64: no?
phoenix64: "100.0% complete"
Christoph_vW: the progress bar is wrong
phoenix64: Neutral

Cristan 11:00, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Currently the website states that the audit is at 95.9%, so it seems the progress bar works again. Cristan 12:16, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh well; hopefully it won't be too long before its at 100% :) -- Limulus 06:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It's now 100% again though. --Iyeru42 (talk) 19:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

HW Requirements wrong - please FIX!

The HW requirements have been reduced (officially) due to changes in the newest version —Precedingunsigned comment added by 134.36.93.46 (talk) 02:57, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Boot screen

There is now a screenshot at the page of the new ReactOS bootscreen. I think this one should be removed for now, because this new bootscreen won't be available until at least 0.3.1. Without an explanation, it will only make the article unclear. When the new bootscreen is available in ReactOS, the image should be uploaded in Wikimedia commons because it is GPL and when hosted there, it is available at other language wikipedia's as well. - Cristan 14:25, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

This bootscreen is currently available in any post-0.3.0 build which can be downloaded from ReactOS's servers as a binary/ISO or in source form. --74.56.173.109 04:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

That's what I meant: it isn't available yet in the current stable version. You can't expect every user in Wikipedia who downloads ReactOS to download an SVN build. I think it's confusing for people to not see this bootscreen after downloading and running ReactOS. The screenshot should either mention that it will be in 0.3.1 or the screenshot should be removed. - Cristan 09:07, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Still no reaction back. I'm removing the image now. Cristan 11:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

ReactOS is not a current event.

According to the information available, the {{current}} is for articles that are undergoing massive changes in traffic due to being a truly current thing. That would imply that it has to be new, popular, etc. Examples of things that were at one point or another current events were things like Hurricane Katrina and Execution of Saddam Hussein—neither of which are current events any longer because they’re “yesterday’s news”.

That having been said, if there is a section that becomes active in this article, it certainly should get the {{current|section}} tag. Perhaps when the next release comes out or whatever. Then it would be appropriate, at least for a short time. —Mike Trausch (fd0man, Talk Page) 21:00, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Latest stable release

Should 0.3.0 really be called stable? This isn't even beta yet. Is it referred to as (relatively) stable within the project? It seems to me that calling any version stable could be misleading, to those who don't know what alpha software is. Jobarts^-Talk 06:42, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I think you're right. 0.3.0 is far from stable. We should do it like Beryl. With latest stable version "N/A" and latest preview version (in this case) "0.3.0". Cristan 11:08, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if this was changed and reverted, but I'm going to make the change. Althepal 02:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Patent issues

If no one has any comments or suggestions, I'm going to add a section about the possible patent infringement in ReactOS. I plan on using[1] for a reference, and likely this quote from that page, "As a rule, patents are fundamentally incompatible with Free Software..." With the multiple acussations leveled from Microsoft against patent infringment in the opensource community I think this deserves at least a mention in the article. --Android Mouse 04:27, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Error screenshots

All the current screenshots play out the idea that the OS is working fine. This is far from true, with system crashes around every corner. Can there be one screenshot of an error happening? And maybe fewer other screenshots? Althepal 02:29, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

Major errors in ReactOS cause the fated Blue Screen of Death, which--like on Windows--cannot be captured very well. The system shutdown also results in a blue screen of death; although it only says that it is safe to turn off the computer. --76.201.144.238 (talk) 14:14, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

What's the point?

Don't worry, this comment isn't as negative as it looks :-) . I just wanted to suggest that the article would be better with a section discussing why ReactOS is being built. What is the goal of the project, who are the intended users, what is the reason for reimplementing an operating system that's already widely (if not freely) available?PeteVerdon 16:13, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure this info could be found on their site, but I'm pretty sure it was made to provide a non-unix (completely Windows-compatible) operating system under a free license. Because, not everybody wants to use Linux (and Linux with wine cannot support every program for windows), and it is for people who want a free alternative. Those who can afford windows will probably stick with them for a better guarantee of it working + the ability to run Microsoft software that won't install on anything other than genuine Windows, but this os is for everybody else. Althepal 03:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Another reason AFAIK is the ability to use Windows drivers would enable people to use hardware that isn't supported on *nix on a free OS Nil Einne 20:14, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind, Windows supports *nix methods to a degree on its own. Since both Windows and MacOS were based off of Unix.--76.201.144.238 (talk) 14:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

How was Windows based on Unix? MacOS, yes, but Windows? 193.203.85.98 (talk) 14:41, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Don't confuse the outer "look and feel" layers of an OS with the actual inner workings of it. Windows internals (i.e., the NT kernel) certainly is more inspired by Unix than by MacOS. (But even more NT is inspired by VMS, as is of course well known.) TorLillqvist (talk) 09:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Another (new, 2008) reason why ReactOS is potentially important is Microsoft's announced withdrawal of WinXP. If you buy one of those little Asus Eee PC laptops running Linux, and you want to run Windows software on it, Microsoft will no longer sell you a separate copy of XP. They'll happily sell you a copy of Vista, but Vista won't run on that hardware. I own a bit of PC gear, and none of it will run Vista. I've also invested a certain amount of time and money in Windows applications that don't have Linux versions. And at some point the XP updates and compatibility fixes are going to stop. So, if ReactOS is working by then, and it's any good, I'll probably consider moving all my WinXP gear over to ReactOS. Similarly, if I buy a nice laptop next year, I'd much rather have it running XP than power-hungry Vista, but XP is no longer a "retail" option on new laptops with decent amounts of power. So I'd have to consider taking an old existing copy of XP off a different machine (and replacing it with ReactOS), or simply deleting Vista and installing ReactOS on the laptop as an "upgrade" to Vista. It depends how long it takes ReactOS to be ready: if I was ASUS, I'd consider bunging a few grand into the ReactOS donations fund, and making pointed suggestions that the EEE range be treated as a "milestone" platform for the OS. ErkDemon (talk) 20:17, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Wrong. MS just extended the availablity of XP specifically for Netbook OEMs —Preceding unsignedcomment added by 134.36.93.46 (talk) 02:58, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

I think it goes a little deeper than that still. More importantly than than being free - its open source. Which means everytime a smart person runs into a problem they can potentially fix it on their own without waiting for a patch. Or the OS can be customized for any purpose. Think of it as the perfect candidate for a HomeMediaPC (attaching it to your HD-TV with custom software, custom boot screen, and all applications Windows OS related - without having all the requirements of a Windows PC in the way). One step furthur they are hoping to address the built-upon-a-build thats built-upon-a-build and built-upon-a-build. This is one of the reasons that Windows has such terrible reliability, the operating system is a massively modified version of DOS. By doing what Microsoft should have done a long time ago (re-starting from scratch) they hope to bypass most of the current problems in Windows in its final builds.

To add a bit more to the mix, it takes about 3secs from power-on for my ReactOS to login completely. The features that are working properly - are far faster, smaller and cleaner coded than its Windows counterpart. But for the most part, its the possibilities and to say no - I will not pay Microsoft for their OS anymore. I want to be able to alter my OS to suite my needs and be able to use an OS that houses the majority of applications that I am comfortable with. :D

Ed KermEd (talk) 02:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to correct you there. NT (NT 3.x, NT 4, 2k, XP, Server 2k3 (And ReactOS, it's open-source clone), Vista, Server 2k8 and 7) is not actually built upon DOS. It's closest relative is actually OS/2, which was influenced by PC/DOS. 81.135.45.150 (talk) 14:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Which Windows is this supposed to clone?

9x, NT, XP, what? 66.28.178.67 16:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've heard "NT", "Serve 2003," and "XP" float around the forum. I think it is NT. Althepal 17:38, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

XP is part of the NT family. I heard they were aiming for the feature level of Windows 2000, though. - Sikon 03:27, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

"The ReactOS architecture is based on that of Microsoft Windows NT 4.0" and "The original target for ReactOS, with regards to driver and application compatibility, was Microsoft Windows NT 4.0. Since then, Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP have been released. Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP are both descendants of Windows NT. As such we can gradually shift our compatibility target without worrying about the architecture changing too much. In fact, internally, Windows 2000 reports version information as Windows 5.0 and Windows XP as Windows 5.1. The ReactOS team have decided to maintain Windows NT 4.0 as the official compatibility target. This is because most of the resources, articles and books on Windows NT/2000/XP technology are written for Windows NT 4.0. This does not mean that features present in later versions of Windows NT based operating systems will not be implemented in ReactOS."[2] -- Limulus 07:11, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Its NT4 as SAMBA (on which they will be basing the networking) is based on the NT4 style domain model rather than the newer XP style Active Diretcory model. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.17.216.130 (talk) 11:43, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

if it's nt4 based then why does it have a kernel version of 5.2 (windows server 2003's kernel) if you boot it in debug mode it says " reactos (r) kernel version 5.2 (BUILD 3790: service pack 1, v. 40701)" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jedixo (talk • contribs) 15:50, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

It currently targets Server 2003 at kernel level, but aims for Win32 compatability with the latest Windows version (currently Vista, 7 when it is released.) Source:http://www.reactos.org/en/newsletter_54.html#sec5 The123king 01 June 2009

Audit at 100% (again)

62.56.77.93 just made an edit removing:

As of December 2007 the audit is nearly 100% complete,[3] with only 3 files still locked.[4] To date, no suspect code has been uncovered.

commenting "Remove links... - Not relevant audit has moved to being internal"

What does that mean? The audit is still ongoing? I don't see any news on the ReactOS homepage... -- Limulus (talk) 16:21, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I reverted the edit, the change wasn't encyclopedic or accurate. Either the audit is finished (most likely) or the pages aren't up right now. So now it's probably clear, let's just wait for an official word. Althepal (talk) 20:53, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've done a huge edit of that section to put things in the actual perspective (kind of what of the edits by 61.56.77.93 meant). It is only an internal developer audit, nothing official or public. It was only done by the developers so they would ensure the project is 100% legit, and they have accomplished this end. I am unsure if there actually was any code that has undergone or needs to undergo re-writing, but that is all being taken care of internally. Althepal (talk) 21:46, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Is that actually true, from an objective viewpoint? The Wine people are still refusing to re-sync ReactOS-brewed patches on copyright grounds, aren't they?Chris Cunningham (talk) 23:36, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Some reactOS' dll's have more features which aren't required for wine[5]. With others there is a good cooperation (as far as I've heard). I have never heard about about Wine refusing ReactOS dll's because of copyright claims and I've followed the project for quite some time now. That combined with this post leaves no evidence that Althepal's edits/information is wrong. —Precedingunsigned comment added by Cristan (talk • contribs) 01:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

While I can't find the quote I'm looking for (I'm pretty sure Mike McCormack stated flat-out that wine work wouldn't be merged because its non-taintedness couldn't be confirmed), at the bottom of this section Stephen Edwards says that "The general policy is to no longer accept code from ReactOS". Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:54, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Roadmap

Future direction isn't encyclopedic commentary. This should be reworked back into prose covering what has actually happened. The ROS site has its own wiki for this kind of thing. Chris Cunningham (talk) 19:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Legality?

Aside from reverse engineering, what is the situation with technology and user interface related patents Microsoft may hold about Windows system insides and the Luna graphics environment? Somehow I think if this project goes anywhere near release, lawyers will pop up and sue them out of existance (an justly so, since Microsoft spent 20+ years developing the whole damn Windows system which these guys are blatantly stealing). 82.131.210.162 (talk) 11:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

ReactOS is entirely legal. Some people review Windows NT and make a list of specifications, and developers do their own work without stealing or even seeing Windows code. Windows doesn't have any copyright claims to GUI elements such as the start menu, taskbar, or windows style, because all these things are seen in Linux. (Even if they make the Luna theme, which I doubt, they would draw it from scratch. I know for a fact they are making their own icon set and not using any Windows icons, though for user transition, many icons will be similar to existing Windows icons. Microsoft, though, does not own rights to icons similar to Windows icons.) Althepal (talk) 19:40, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

And, of course, it's difficult for Microsoft to complain too much about people nicking the "look and feel" of Windows, since a lot of people think that MS nicked a lot of that same "look and feel" from Apple. The development codename for Win95 was "Chicago", which was the name of the Mac's system font. Code-compatibility is a more thorny issue, but if MS was to complain that ReactOS is unfairly stealing WinXP sales, they have the problem that they've already announced that they'll be refusing to sell any more copies of XP anyway, because they want customers to buy Vista instead. Not everybody likes Vista, and there's a hell of a lot of legacy hardware out there that simply won't run it. So if people want to continue to run their (legitimately-bought) Windows applications on those machines, under a "supported" OS, and there's no longer a legal way to buy an MS operating system to run on those machines, it makes it more difficult for MS to complain when someone comes along and supports those windows-app users, for free. There's a danger that MS lawyers may pounce when ReactOS is finished, but if I was the judge, I'd say that MS have had ten years to use lawyers to halt this programme, and if they haven't done it until now, then sorry, it's too late.

There's also the argument that some MS customers view projects such as Reactos and Wine as a safety net that takes some of the risk out of committing to the Windows platform. If MS were to fully withdraw XP, and eliminate Wine and Reactos, then that makes Windows a higher-risk investment, and some corporate customers would respond by acceleratng their migration to Unix/Linux/etc. ErkDemon (talk) 19:54, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Of course it is illegal. Any operating system aside Windows is illegal. They all pirated because Microsoft spent years and billions dollars to develop Windows. The very idea of operating system and mouse interface belongs to Microsoft.--Dojarca (talk) 17:00, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

I hope you are being sarcastic. Linux is fully legal, and Apple came up with the idea of a GUI before Microsoft. Also, Unix and CP/M were. there even before MS-DOS 23:22, 21 February 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.0.232.7 (talk)

I have to disagree with that illegal comment. Windows may be closed source, but anyone with Windows and Visual Studio/Basic 2005 can view any application's code (Since it can open EXEs.) Using REGedit to show the registry is no different. ReactOS uses a similar registry editing program too. Anyway, this is like if you said OvBB was illegal, which it wasn't. --76.201.144.238 (talk) 14:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Dojarca's statement was sarcasm. (Apple was the first to make an operating system with a GUI and mouse.) Althepal (talk) 01:03, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

By "Apple" I assume you means "Xerox." 151.197.183.192 (talk) 08:32, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, I know a case in Russia where a person was penalize for a very large sum of money and sentenced to a conditional term for using a GPLed program made after and similar to a proprietary analogue. The judge ruled that not only the programm's code but also others elements and API are under copyright. The other side (the copyright holder) claimed that they missed much money because the server runned the GPLed software and customers user the free server rather than proprietary. The GPLed server was ordered to be closed.--Dojarca (talk) 11:53, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean Ragnarok? Chris Archer (talk) 11:49, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Made modifications to Version history and roadmap

Release date of version 0.6 was 2008, however the official reactos roadmap page didn't specify any date so i changed it to Unset. IngerAlHaosului(talk) 11:48, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Touchpad Support

Although I don't know if this has been confirmed by the ReactOS Team itself, but not all touchpads seem to work. Some jerk the mouse to random directions, causing unwanted clicks. I have filed a bug for this, here (3048) --76.201.144.238 (talk) 14:19, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Achitechture Support

"...which at this point can fit better than a full featured operating system." The intent of this statement is unclear and the grammar is a bit odd. Pocket PCs can fit ReactOS Better? Why wouldn't one have a full-featured OS on a Pocket PC? (TheGZeusNeedsToRegisterAgain) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.33.45 (talk) 18:32, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

That says they are making a "Windows Mobile" or "Windows CE" equivalent, because PocketPCs have greatly limited to nonexistent expandability ports and a tiny screen, plus they have very limited memory, storage, and processing speeds. That is why such devices are loaded with minimalistic operating systems aimed at the device's intended use: PDA.Althepal (talk) 23:26, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Version history and development doesn't deserve 'proseline'

I'm not convinced that rewriting a table that outlines the different features in subsequent releases in prose would actually be an improvement. In order to include the same level of detail, one would have to write the sort of disjointed sentences that the anti-proseline guidelines are supposed to prevent.

If it is felt that it's overly dominating the article while not being very relevent, it should be cut down or deleted, rather than rewritten without the structure of the table. Watcher (talk) 17:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I made an effort to do this and believe it paid off. The whole thing was reverted on the dubious grounds that the table was "much easier to understand". I've restored the prode and will work on improving it.

Wikipedia articles on software are not just meant to be huge timelines. Such detail may be suitable for the project's own wiki, but not here. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:13, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

... but in this case, where we're talking about a product that has been in development for ten years and isn't ready yet, a "huge timeline" may be appropriate. If people want to be able to judge the future software's prospects, and its likelihood of appearing in a finished state in a certain timeframe, then a timeline gives a NPOV indication or past progress, trends, and likely future progress. When(?) Reactos is finished, and becomes an actual product that people can use, then the main interest of readers of the article will shift to what the finished product actually does. At that point, we'll have proper specifications (etc.), and people will be less interested in development history - the justification for devoting such a large proportion of the article to a development timeline will diminish. But while ReactOS is still a "work in progress", its "story" is all about development, and a development timeline is very relevant. IMO. ErkDemon (talk) 19:26, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

That it isn't finished yet doesn't mean we should give undue weight to the development process. By and large the development isn't that important to most people; the simple lack of other things to write about doesn't change that. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 19:38, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, considering that the earlier "Win95 clone" project was cancelled, and this project has now been "pre-beta" for about a decade, some context describing the development process and how far along they appear to be with it may be of some interest to potential users. My own interest in this project is as a potential end-user - what I want to know (wearing my "everyman" hat) is (a) the probabilty that this project will actually be finished, (b) if so, what the timescale is likely to be for completion of at least a workable beta, and (c) what the shortcomings of the final product might be. Question (c) can't be answered yet, and its difficult for an outsider to judge how far any confident assurances from those involved regarding (a) and (b) might be. So, as a potential end-user, all that I have to go on, when trying to judge whether this OS might appear and be of some strategic use to me within the next six months, is that existing development timeline.

Since ReactOS is already supposed to run the "office" applications that I use, I was tempted to download it and install it on a spare machine to try it out, just for running basic office apps, like wordprocessing ... but since the timeline helpfully indicates that USB support isn't in place yet (but ought to be coming along reasonably soon), I'll wait until at least the USB stuff is up and running before I try it. So I've personally found the timeline info in the article useful. ErkDemon(talk) 03:57, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

"Useful" isn't really our threshold for notability. As the entire timeline content is drawn from the ReactOS website, we'd be as well pointing people who wanted "useful" detail on such in that direction. What we should be concentrating on is critical reception, impact, any influences et cetera. Our purpose here is not just to dump as much data as is available on the project - it's to frame it in terms of what it means to the world at large, preferably referenced to secondary rather then primary sources.Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 09:35, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

RosAsm's developer's allegation

From the article:

RosAsm's developer has however alleged that the most suspect files were missing from the list of files selected for the audit, which would make the audit unavailing.

My view is that, as Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/RosAsm seems to indicate that RosAsm's developer is a spammer, and spammers are generally untrustworthy (see scams for counterfeit watches, fake degrees, etc. in your e-mail's junk folder), this information should not be included in the article. Skippy le Grand Gourou seems to disagree. Someone else's thoughts on the matter would be appreciated. 69.110.47.155 (talk) 21:29, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

All Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/RosAsm tells me is that the RosAsm article was considered spam. It said nothing about the developer. ZinnKid(talk) 00:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly what I meant. AFAIK, he "accepted" WP's decision. The fact that he worked a long time along with ReactOS developpers makes his opinion pertinent, and the fact that nobody from ReactOS really tried to invalidate it undermines the "old friend becoming an enemy" hypothesis, so I think it is relevant here. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 16:30, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

The code that RosAsm's developer betov is disputing is under the standard EULA for the Windows NT Device Driver Kit. see changes. -- LoneRifle (talk) 15:33, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Fine. :-)

I think it is good to keep this objection and clarification. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 21:16, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

First paragraph later contridicted

The first paragraph says ReactOS contains only free software that was written by clean room means. However, later in the article it is mentioned that ReactOS contains some code directly from Microsoft and who's license is under an MS EULA. So clearly the project is not entirely reversed engineered. And unless this EULA is considered free software, it's not entirely free software either. 68.62.174.138 (talk) 19:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The EULA stipulates that the developer is free to distribute the samples in both code and binary form, as quoted in the article. Feel free to edit the first paragraph as you wish, and take up the issue with ReactOS and/or Microsoft; as far as I can tell, the quoted line appears to release the sample code with terms similar to the BSD license --LoneRifle (talk) 13:35, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Archive 1

Split Version History Into Own Article

Article needs to be split so version history has its own page. Iyeru42 (talk) 01:34, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Like "Development of ReactOS"? idk, do you think it's an important enough OS? And it could really just be summarized in one sentence: "ReactOS is expected to be completed in the second half of the 21st century." Althepal (talk) 18:59, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

How about reducing it down to major features and changes only? A version by version review goes beyond what is encyclopedic. Reub2000 (talk) 21:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I've implemented the Version History Table. It should take up less space, however, I have also removed the citations. DO NOT revert the table if you want the citations back. Instead, use the History function of the article to get old citations. 68.185.166.207 (talk) 15:57, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

The same issues exist here. There is an emphasis of tracking every little change made to the tree. Reub2000 (talk) 07:21, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I've cut it down a bit. 24.241.229.253 (talk) 23:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Between every release the developers make a few thousand changes. just eg. see the shortened list for the ongoing release at http://reactos.org/wiki/ChangeLog-0.3.11 . it hink, if someone has the time to research and create the "Development of ReactOS"-page then, he/she should do it. and yes, it is an important enought os. ReactOS even made the second place in the 3 important categorys of the sourceforge-community-choice-award! 75.170.61.39 (talk) 08:16, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Establishing greater notability through inclusion of more sources

This article did not manage to pass its GA review due to lack of sources establishing notability, see here. The ReactOS site contains a listing of third-party articles that may prove useful to anybody making further improvements to the article in this respect, see here. Of note is the column written by John C. Dvorak of PC Magazine. -- LoneRifle (talk) 11:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"Latest stable release"

Infobox needs to be changed to "Latest preview release" -- this 'aint stable. Althepal (talk) 00:09, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Done. 24.241.229.253 (talk) 14:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is a stable release. This Software is still in alpha-stage and if you just use the OS alone, then the releases are stable. 75.170.61.39 (talk) 07:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Versions of ReactOS - Collapsible

Can someone make a show link or something that will expand/collapse the versions of ReactOS table? It's going to get pretty long in time to come. Because the people of wikipedia obviously don't want a separate "Releases of ReactOS" article. 24.241.229.253 (talk) 14:58, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

 Done Airplaneman ^talk 06:08, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Other controversy

• Reactos contains code similar to Windows Research Kernel (Windows server 2003).

This sentence doesn't mean it was deliberately copied and it was in a correct section discussing about controversies and just after a sentence where it was discussed about similarities between Reactos code and Windows code. I gave examples that everyone can verify (CmpLazyFlushWorker() or ExCreateCallback()) but it was removed. So it was in the right place and the act of removing it twice is quite hostile. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.49.124.107 (talk) 15:27, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

That still constitutes original research. To compound the problem, we are unable to establish your identity. Also, since your claim lack references, they should not be added to the article. Your claim that everyone can verify the functions you mentioned is also untrue; Wikipedia does not allow for comments that can only be verified through extra effort, eg, manually comparing the WRK and the ReactOS Kernel, as the burden of evidence lies with the reader, see Wikipedia:V#Burden_of_evidence. In particular, "All quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged must be attributed to a reliable, published source using an #Footnote referencing."

If you genuinely have concerns about the origin of the contributions to the kernel you could either contact the developers directly, or publish your own article on the WWW about your findings. I can then reference your new article in Wikipedia. --LoneRifle (talk) 16:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

As for correct placement, you are introducing a new issue (your claim) to a previous event (the 2006 audit). This is why I stated that it has nothing to do with what the section is explaining, and would be more appropriate under a general "Criticisms" section. --XRideBMX (talk) 21:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

• OK so here is another tip with a reference: TIMER_TABLE_SIZE was not present in older versions of Reactos, and as you know perfectly it's impossible to find Constant names by disassembling so it comes from a Microsoft source. Just have a look here: http://svn.reactos.org/svn/reactos/trunk/reactos/ntoskrnl/include/internal/ke.h?view=markup&pathrev=37132 .

That information is not immediately obvious, it is derived information. Understanding that the derivation of constant names can only be done through disassembly is specialist knowledge that is not immediately obvious to the reader, so ie, i actually have to do some thinking in order to realise that indeed the source code could have been derived from disassembly. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a technical journal.

In addition, the reference comes from ReactOS itself, which is not counted as a reliable source of information. You also do not have the Microsoft source, and more importantly, you do not have an article written by a third party that explicitly makes the comparison. Unless all these points are met, the information should not be admissible into the article.

To further extend my point about my questioning the admission of this information, I would like to point out that it is already mentioned in the article that Alex Ionescu has explicitly stated that he did look at disassembly when writing code for the project, so it is already known from reading the project that it does contain elements of disassembly, and your insistence on having this information admitted is pretty much moot.

By the way, I still don't know your identity. Who are you? --LoneRifle (talk) 09:41, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Time context

A lot of the information in this article doesn't mention any kind of time, only things like "currently", "to this day", "on-going". It is very unclear - when did it start? When was the information updated? I've added Template:Time-context to note this, and it might need some Template:When. However, I think that there are just too many places with unclear time, even in the heading there are around 3 vague time references, so When might get too repetitive. --GreatEmerald (talk) 22:03, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I need an example of how we can rephrase the statements that you have pointed out. In addition, I would like to avoid use of "As of {this date}", since it implies that at a later time the information in the article would be outdated.LoneRifle (talk) 09:11, 24 March 2010 (UTC) I have made some changes. Please review. --LoneRifle (talk) 11:06, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Looks good right now. I don't see any more reasons to keep the warning, so it's removed. --GreatEmerald (talk) 18:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Doesn't Include Non-Free codecs such as MP3, which Windows Has?

Is this mentioned anywhere in the article? If so, I must've missed it. If it is not included in the article, I strongly recommend sourcing something to back it up, for exa: "Like with most Linux distributions, ReactOS does not come with Non-Free Codecs such as MP3, WMV, etc. support." 24.240.67.71 (talk) 08:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

I still see that it is not included in the article. If this continues to be so, I may have to add it in myself (causing GA to fail due to citation needed.) People need to know that, even though their programs may run, MP3/etc. will not, unless they get their codecs in a non-legal way. (I haven't seen a codec package that includes MP3 that you have to pay for, to use, on windows. In fact, I haven't seen ANY MP3 codec that will be installed on Windows, as Windows ALREADY HAS MP3.) Not trying to sound frustrated here, but it's the truth. MP3 codecs will not expire until 2018 either, so if ReactOS becomes Beta before then... well.... 71.87.112.255 (talk) 14:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Irrelevant to the discussion of the operating system itself. Read Winamp#Plug-ins and VLC media player#Readable formats to understand why.--LoneRifle (talk) 12:52, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't see MPEG-3 under audio in VLC. 68.190.126.146 (talk) 05:31, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

MP3 stands for Mpeg-1 Audio level 3, not to be confused with MPEG-3. --LoneRifle (talk) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.228.82.171 (talk) 09:46, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

VLC doesn't say MP3 nor MPEG-1 Audio Level 3. 68.190.126.174 (talk) 16:30, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Look under Readable formats: Audio formats. LoneRifle (talk) 12:09, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Windows versions

The beginning of the article is a little bit ambiguous. Windows version 5 is XP, Vista is 6 and of course there is the new Windows 7. However, NT5 covers 2000-2003 (including XP) and NT6 is from Vista onwards. --213.130.252.119 (talk) 22:46, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

it is deliberately so. the ReactOS kernel supports the 2k3 kernel api, while the rest of it (win32k etc) currently targets NT6. if the reader needs clarity after reading the introduction he will get his answers by reading the Development section of the article. --LoneRifle (talk) 12:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Inclusion of future versions

Moved from User talk:Gyrobo.

Please refrain from listing them. Reasons as follows:

• This information is cited from ReactOS itself. As per Wikipedia:Reliable sources ReactOS is not a reliable source of information and hence any information about future revisions has to be sourced from third parties.

• Wikipedia, afaik, does not list future revisions anyway.

see also Talk:ReactOS#Additional_comments and The revision done by User:Althepal —Preceding unsigned comment added by LoneRifle (talk • contribs) 12:39, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a wealth of precedent for primary sources where software development is involved: Songbird (software) lists future versions based on a document created by the Songbird developers, and Banshee (media player) also once listed future versions based on a blog post by an affiliated developer (before they became current versions). And all of the comparison pages for SVG, CSS and HTML5 use sources provided directly from browser vendors (in some cases, bug links) to determine support.

WP:CRYSTAL appears to apply only for unreferenced, unverifiable speculation; information about future ReactOS versions do have references. The consensus on the talk section you linked to gives the impression that such sources should be used subjectively ("using them might be ok if the developer was a major company"). I just don't see why we shouldn't add information about future versions of ReactOS when the refs appear to fully meet the criteria of Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves.
--Gyrobo (talk) 15:09, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I hereby urge you to get in touch with User:Althepal and User:Offliner, who were the ones who raised the issues with future revisions and not citing from ReactOS respectively, to make your case. I am aware of Wikipedia:Reliable sources#Self-published and questionable sources as sources on themselves, but during the article's GA review, when I cited this in response to Offliner's feedback about self-published sources, I received no reply.

I still have one more point against your inclusion of the information, and that is the fact that the information is obtained from the ReactOS wiki. Prior to the GA review, User:Diderot's dreams noted, and I quote: Wikis are not acceptable sources. So don't cite anything from a wiki.

If you can find information regarding future releases without resorting to the wiki, I wouldn't mind, but I would definitely prefer it if you could source the information from third parties, so that we can all avoid arguments with other parties regarding the validity of ReactOS' self-published information. Personally, I would advise against trusting anything said on the ReactOS site; as part of the ReactOS test team I'm aware that the developers don't have a tendency to keep it up-to-date.

Finally, please reply by writing on my talk page, you'll get a faster response. -- LoneRifle (talk) 16:37, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Conversations continues at User talk:LoneRifle#Future ReactOS versions.
--Gyrobo (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

I can't find any reference to wikis being accepted self-published sources in Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources#Self-published sources (online and paper). If you could, provide a quote that I can search on. Thanks. On the other hand, I did find this: For that reason self-published media—whether books, ... open wikis, ... or tweets—are largely not acceptable. --LoneRifle (talk) 19:32, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

It says that open wikis are among the materials considered "largely not acceptable". But that isn't an absolute, and I believe that in this case and similar cases, the five criteria for including such material are met.
--Gyrobo (talk) 19:36, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Make your case to User:Diderot's dreams, I have no further comment. --LoneRifle (talk) 07:44, 8 May 2010 (UTC)

[outdent] Who wrote the ReactOS wiki sources listed in the article? This person/persons must be identified. I have looked, and editing the wiki is not limited to developers, nor are real names required. Without this information, we can doubt the authenticity of the sources and even whether the sources are self-published, as someone outside the project may have wrote them. Best. Diderot's dreams (talk) 18:54, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The specific author should not be a factor here. There are many Mozilla Developer Center articles used as reference material for articles on Gecko standards support, despite such articles not listing author names and being publicly editable. I believe that in cases like this, documentation put out by an organization, not necessarily a specific individual, is sufficient. And the organization in this case is the official ReactOS wiki, which seems to exist for the express purpose of conveying such information (see Status > Roadmap, Versions).
--Gyrobo (talk) 19:26, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

The specific author is critical, because it is an open wiki. If the wiki was closed, we would know that the author was part of ReactOS, we wouldn't need to know. I know that the developers want the wiki to serve as the main source for information about the project, and set it up, but they only host it. Any particular part may not be written or vetted by them. Except the "version status" page which has warnings about non-developers editing.

I see no reason that the wiki is a separate organization. If it was, however, then only information about the wiki itself would be self-published.

I'm not sure that there is any information being reported, anyway. The future version table entries says only the what the version numbers will be of some of future planned versions. Which is trivial. No timeline, no information about what is planned to be added/improved in each version. Diderot's dreams (talk) 14:41, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I should have thought more carefully about what I was trying to say, because I think we're on the same page: I don't believe the wiki is a separate entity -- that by publicly listing future version numbers, ReactOS as an organization is making a public statement about its version scheme. I didn't include factual information about specific versions from the wiki (such as the pretty comprehensive list of milestones for 4.0) for the exact reasons you mentioned. Such data would be available in subsequent press releases. I just wanted to list the version numbers, to show that a roadmap (of sorts) exists and that development is ongoing. I don't think this information is trivial.
--Gyrobo (talk) 15:55, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

If a ReactOS developer wrote down those version numbers, started those pages, etc., and not just a ReactOS user, then I would agree. I wouldn't say that a user's postings on the site's wiki is a statement by the organization. Maybe the history list of the edits to the version pages would tell us. Have you checked? Sorry I'm not able to get through to Reactos.org right now.

I can understand the trouble, some open source projects use an open wiki that is edited by both developers and by users of the software. Let the users help write the user manual, I suppose. In the case of a Wiki, it seems to me that some pages or parts of a page may be acceptable, while other pages or parts are not, depending who added what part.

BTW, I think its great and acceptable to talk about the future versions as long as the source qualifies as reliable. WP:CRYSTAL seems to be talking about whole articles, not information, and about speculation as you pointed out. Diderot's dreams (talk) 04:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

The pages that really seems to matter in this case are the Navigation Versions template and the roadmap pages, which list future versions. The histories show both to be actively maintained by ReactOS members. Also, I'm going to move this conversation to the ReactOS talk page because that's where it really should be.
--Gyrobo (talk) 19:37, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I must admit that I have not been following ReactOS lately. But I will say, I believe that if you can cite reason to believe that, though unofficial, pages such as http://www.reactos.org/wiki/0.4.0 represent actual goals set forth by the developers, you have grounds to cite it when mentioning tentative plans. Unless you can show at least some evidence that they represent developer goals and not user speculation, though, we really cannot rely on it as a source. If there is reason to believe that whoever wrote it was speculating without authority, there really is not grounds to use the source. And if we are using them as sources, why not include information about what changes those versions are expected to hold? Just listing a bunch of numbers between 0.3.11 and 1 seems pretty pointless otherwise. But you know, the information is explicitly stated as not being official nor set in stone. You may well be best off by limiting mentions of the future by talking about overall project goals cited by http://www.reactos.org/en/dev_faq.html . I think that's the only real good source of information for the project's future. Althepal (talk) 03:26, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Down ?

Just FYI: The reactos websites seem to be offline, and have been for a few days now. 82.168.66.131 (talk) 11:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Two Quick Issues

Fixing "Internal Audit"

The section for Internal Audit explains the process of the audit itself before explaining the cause for the audit. For the sake of encyclopedic value, I suggest the paragraphs should be reorganized to read like:

"The claim was made on January 17, 2006 by now former developer Hartmut Birr on the ReactOS Developers mailing list (ros-dev), stating that ReactOS contained code derived from disassembling Microsoft Windows.[6]. The code that Birr disputed involved the function BadStack in syscall.S[7] as well as other unspecified items.....

In a separate incident, RosAsm developer Betov claimed that the most suspect files were missing from the list of files selected for the audit. However, ReactOS asserts that the disputed files were sourced from Sanos.[11] In the meantime, since the initial lockout, the source code of ReactOS has remained available and open for inspection.

On January 27, 2006, ReactOS decided to temporarily suspend access to files of the operating system for non-developers, after a meeting to verify a claim that ReactOS had been tainted with copyrighted code from Microsoft. ...

Consequently, ReactOS clarified that its Intellectual Property Policy Statement requirements on clean room reverse engineering conform to US law. An internal source code audit was conducted to ensure that only clean room reverse engineering was used, and all developers were made to sign an agreement committing them to comply with the project's policies on reverse engineering.[4]..."

...That way, the cause and effect is clearly demonstrated. The World War II article doesn't begin with combat operations and end explaining why all those combat operations were necessary. The audit was the result of Harmut Birr and Betov's accusations, therefore, they should be described before the audit. Any series of events should be described in chronological order.

Feel free to change it. This was originally structured that way because I was preparing for the event that the reviewer insists on removing the text referencing the SVN repository and mailing list. -- LoneRifle (talk) 14:19, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Original Research?

Also, the statement "Parallels can be drawn between this and the lawsuit brought up by Sony Computer Entertainment against Connectix over reverse engineering done in the course of developing Virtual Game Station, where Connectix successfully appealed the initial judgment, saying that direct disassembly and observation of proprietary code was necessary because there was no other way to determine its behavior, and thus counted as fair use.[10]" is original research. The link is the text to the ruling on Connectix v. Sony, and in no way mentions ReactOS. Thus, stating that the situation of ReactOS is like that of Connectix Virtual Game Station is original research, since the author of the cited source does not state what the sentence states.

If someone could get another source, perhaps an old news article or something from the ReactOS mailing list, that explains that Alex Ionescu's use of disassembled code can be considered fair use, or is considered as such by the team, then such a statement could work. The only issue right now is that the statement isn't in the source cited. Or, specifically "you must be able to cite reliable published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the material as presented." The Connectix vs. Sony case only indirectly relates to the topic, and doesn't directly state that ReactOS is covered under fair use. I personally believe it is, but as a Wikipedia editor it's not my position to post my interpretation of copyright law on Wikipedia. The source itself has to state how the Connectix vs. Sony case applies to ReactOS, or similarly explain how the use of disassembled code in the development of ReactOS constitutes fair use.

Right now, I haven't done anything to change the article. I haven't rearranged the "Internal Audit" section, and I haven't put in an original research tag yet, either. LoneRifle put a fair amount of work into getting this article into "Good Article" status, and after my unwitting mix-up over Arwinss I prefer giving him or someone else a chance to fix it. I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass or anything, I just want the article to be better, so maybe someday it gets featured article status.

--RaptorEmperor (talk) 10:54, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Fair point, go ahead. -- LoneRifle (talk) 14:19, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

David Welch non-sequitur in History

I can't find any direct third-party references to David Welch and ReactOS on the web, much less his background (although there are a few mailing list entries that do indicate that he was active on L4 Fiasco, and has an Oxford Uni email address. The comment is pretty non-sequitur anyway, and people are more interested in the project than they are in the developers. Unless we can further complement up the blurb with a good reference, and maybe some material about Alex Ionescu (notable, since he was the one whose inclusion in the team caused a good number of the original developers to depart), I suggest we take it down. LoneRifle (talk) 06:12, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality

I'm not convinced this article is entirely unbiased.

For example, the paragraph that starts with "Development is limited by a lack of people with relevant experience" seems scathing and unnecessary. I hardly think it's fair to compare the resources of hobby OS to the those of a multi-billion dollar global corporation, and surely nobody reading this article would have that expectation.

The implication seems to be that ReactOS is somehow unworthy because it has "only" 37 developers, but surely the number of developers is irrelevant to the quality of the results, as demonstrated quite adequately by at least two previous releases of Windows, ME and Vista. I'm sure there are many software projects out there with "only" 37 developers or less, but that doesn't seem to be a relevant talking point where they are concerned, so why should it be relevant to ReactOS?

The bit about ReactOS developers having "no prior knowledge" of the Windows architecture also seems a bit scathing, and misses the point that this is actually beneficial in a "clone" OS that implements clean room reverse engineering in order to avoid "IP" issues. Slatedorg (talk) 02:13, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it seems to be you who is having a neutrality problem right there. I don't see problems with the current article's tone. I compare this to the OpenOffice.org office suite in many ways, personally.Jasper Deng (talk) 03:12, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Could you provide something more than just an unqualified contradiction, and explain why you think I have a "neutrality problem", or how that's relevant to the points I raised? Thanks. Slatedorg (talk) 15:20, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

According to WP:NPV, "Editing from a neutral point of view means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." In this regard, I think the comparison between Microsoft and ReactOS's development team is simply to point out how the turnaround time for ReactOS is much slower than Windows as a result of less coders being available. If you still have problems, you are welcome to be bold and edit the article. Just make sure your edits follow Wikipedia's policies.

I'm happy to be bold, but I'd rather start by being courteous, and not revert edits I disagree with without talking about them first (WP:TALKDONTREVERT), hence this discussion. My point WRT the section in question is that I don't think it's relevant or constructive to the article. Like I said, there are many software projects with only a handful of developers, but rarely is that fact cited as any indication of the software's merit. If the intention of that section is merely to explain the supposedly slow turnaround of ReactOS, then it should state that explicitly, but it doesn't, indeed there's no reference to development time at all. The tone of that section is simply scathing, posits an unqualified implication on quality, and is thus irrelevant. Slatedorg (talk) 12:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

The lack of personnel is very relevant, as it explains the lack of progress made over time in achieving full binary compatibility with Windows. It has nothing to do with the merits of the project, nor does it posit any implication, let alone an unqualified one, on quality. At any rate, the lack of qualified personnel willing to work on ReactOS is something that the dev team has generally accepted as a standing fact with no implication to their level of work. --LoneRifle (talk) 09:32, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm adding a reliable source, but do you have one? I see no problems with the article tone.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

Finally, Windows Vista is not a low quality OS. On the contrary, it is a very high quality one which is, in many ways, superior to Win XP. I suggest you read this article for more info. -XJDHDR (talk) 15:43, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Calling Windows Vista and other Windows versions bad is pretty much a NPOV violation, just to clarify. "This is actually beneficial" is also a NPOV violation. Even though it's a good article, you're welcome to try to improve it as long as you follow our policies.Jasper Deng (talk) 17:10, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, you're merely stating an opinion, but there are many others with the opposite opinion, including well respected journalists and technical writers. But the point of this discussion is not to establish the merits of Vista, WinME or even ReactOS, it's to demonstrate that the number of developers in a software project should not be used to disparage that project, as the section I'm challenging does, without at least some qualitative analysis to demonstrate it. That's just as true for Vista as it is for ReactOS. I'm not implying Vista was "bad" because it had a high number of developers and a large budget, I'm merely pointing out the fact that there's no correlation between those factors, and unless the section in question can establish that fact, then it's merely a biased opinion. Slatedorg (talk) 12:50, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I disagree, especially since you have provided no reliable sources.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:04, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

I am responsible for the allegedly disparaging comments about developer experience. I hereby declare my interests now and state that I actually belong to the ReactOS test team, although I am currently inactive. You would hence expect my position to be biased in favour of the project, but I wish to comply with NPOV. The comment was structured this way because most of the sources that I obtained from the Internet seemed to only pick up on the nice aspects of the operating system and don't seem to look on the challenges that such a team faces. The explicit reference to lack of experience can be found in the presentation given at Hackmeeting 2009 by Michele C, himself a developer then (see references). There was no intent to put down the developers; the idea I was trying to get across was that this was indeed a hobby project with contributions from fewer than 50 people, with no implied comments as to project quality, as the starting poster has rightfully stated. Neither is it relevant, again as the poster is concerned, so why the starting poster read this much into the comment is beyond my grasp. I am willing to modify the comment such that it focuses more on the lack of personnel which is the idea I'm trying to convey and less on the implied project quality, but as the starting poster has stated I'll like to discuss this, and perhaps to take this discussion further, I'll like to see the proposed amendments first. --LoneRifle (talk) 07:58, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, and apologies for my delayed response. I appreciate your desire to balance the article, however I still feel the manner in which you've stated these counterpoints is unnecessarily scathing. For example, quoting Ohloh's "Very large, active development team" description of "33 developers" is clearly sarcastic, and out of context, since you've failed to clarify that (according to both Ohloh and my personal experience) a large number of projects do in fact have just as few developers, without necessarily negatively impacting the results of those projects. While I appreciate humour as much as the next person, I don't really think sarcasm is appropriate in a Wikipedia article. I propose changing "in the ReactOS entry in Ohloh, the page followed through the "Very large, active development team" link lists 33 developers" to "the ReactOS entry in Ohloh lists 33 developers". I further propose the complete removal of the sentence "By contrast, there are 1000 or so developers who worked on Windows 7 alone, organized into 25 teams, with each team averaging 40 developers.", unless you wish to add an inline citation that explains its relevance, e.g. "ReactOS is {x%} API complete compared to Windows, but should not be considered a suitable substitute for Windows because {reason}. This is due to the fact ReactOS has so few developers compared to Microsoft", and perhaps some comments that ReactOS is not meant to be a commercial competitor to Microsoft, but is after all just a hobby OS. Slatedorg (talk) 19:11, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I think LoneRifle gets the final word here.Jasper Deng (talk) 17:08, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

I would have agreed to the Ohloh modification proposal except that the content in Ohloh is highly dynamic, and hence it is difficult to actually cite the statistics as quoted on the article except to provide explicit instructions to readers (ie, the "Very large" link). I do not detect any sarcasm, nor is it intended: after all, 33 developers is indeed considered to be a large number of developers for an open-source project (not every project is Firefox or GNOME or the Linux kernel). Your proposal might make editors frown as they usually prefer citations to information which can be directly read and not inferred; I think Jasper can provide the necessary reference to the Wikipedia rubric here. Given the lack of third-party sources and the lack of any hard evidence of personnel elsewhere, I ask you to consider an alternative proposal. The comparison with Microsoft is not meant to cast the project in a bad light but to provide a point of reference so that we know how much effort it actually takes to implement the WinAPI in a given timeframe (ie, 16000 man-years in 8 years - the estimated time between WinXP being released and Win7 being released - for a new iteration), and hence have a good gauge of the estimated time it will take ReactOS to complete the API, after adjusting for hooking into off-the-shelf libraries and etc. I will take your comments into consideration and reword the opening "By contrast" though, as like you said, it does seem as if the article is attempting to make an unfair comparison.

To put it into perspective though, a 10-man dev team that took a month to reimplement Hello World in a chosen language might not be considered to have done an impressive feat. A one-man effort to provide the necessary DLLs for Win2K to support the WinXP API (Yes, it has been done) would be considered a mean feat, if the DLLs were coded from scratch. ReactOS might have taken 10 years to get to the point in the WinAPI where it is, but Microsoft took 20 to bring it up to the current revision. Pity we can't use the latter comment as a hard statistic though. --LoneRifle (talk) 09:51, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for improving the neutrality of this section. Slatedorg (talk) 14:05, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

What the ... is WOOS and why we need two (!!!) photos of unkown pupil?

Is the wiki place for stupid ads? I don't think so.

To moderators - please take attention: a) page has NO "WOOS" entries, NO references b) nobody knows what is WOOS, it is the same joke as BolgenOS (http://www.clearfoundation.com/Community/Videos/VPF/Video.html?videoid=66, Text: No, that's not an joke. It is time to get acquainted. This is a great liar Popov. And the journalists' incompetence made them funny. Russian IT community can't stop laughing. Let's laugh together.) except the "author"

asked Russian president for 1 million dollars to sell him the FREE OS. 

Look at Google - There is no sites about WOOS except Wikipedia.

I think the photos must be removed and if somebody wants to tell about this joke - add an "Interesting facts". I'm not native English speaker, but I'd write smth like this: A Russian school student Karatov offered to Medvedev (link) own build of ReactOS and said that he is writing this OS himself and he can release the OS if he will get 1 million euros. Take a look on comments: http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fhabrahabr.ru%2Fblogs%2Fos%2F127514%2F

Alexeysim06 (talk) 22:47, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

They now don't exist on the article after I purged the server cache. But concerning your comments, please be civil (all-capital letters is considered shouting), we don't have moderators (the closest thing to them are administrators) and content is not moderated by a select few, and please do not make statements attacking other groups or people (our neutral point of view policy). But I support removing the images because of our notability policy.Jasper Deng (talk) 22:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)

I had to revert an edit from User:TarzanASG which attempted to restore the offending images. I'm not as heavily involved with Wikipedia as some of you might be, so could anybody please follow up with the user to go over with him the notion of notability? Thanks. --LoneRifle (talk) 10:43, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

The Medvedev demo is now notable. I've added a reference to the BBC news article and restored a previously removed photo. No reference to WOOS is needed as the media seems to have focus more on the fact that ReactOS was demo'd to him and has gotten his attention. --LoneRifle (talk) 07:37, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Ok I'm really sorry for so attacking point view. It looks it was very emotional post that is not ok for Wiki. I've used ReactOS and I was really wondered to find Medvedev and one more unknown person in the ReactOS article. Sorry. p.s. If you don't mind - I changed all capitals. 178.94.133.176 (talk) 22:31, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Version history

Is there any rationale behind the entries in Version history? I've recently added the missing entries of the 0.2.x release series, but there were those prior. As the OS is still in alpha stage (officially), may be there should be only the last (0.3.x) series in the table and a brief textual introduction to the previous series' focuses? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:00, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

No opinion on this matter, as I find the info therein peripheral to the gist of the article: how you go about building an OS that is binary-compatible with Windows. LoneRifle (talk) 07:51, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I was very passionate about collecting ReactOS release history, but the information on earlier releases is scarce and I'm not entirely convinced of what should be covered to maintain the proper weight. I believe there should be some principle figured out and explained in <!-- --> comment under the "Version history" section heading. With the of 0.4.x release series the information on minor versions of 0.2.x and 0.3.x in my opinion will become obsolete, as the software will enter the beta stage and minor changes in alpha would fade out of the focus. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:30, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Vaporware

I get the feeling that people will find the article and read that it is "compatible" with Windows 2000 (among other optimistic wordings), only to discover that this is not a usable operating system and eventually realize that it will probably be decades before it is stable enough to run properly, by which point it would be devastatingly outdated and most certainly disbanded. I believe a re-write is in order to avoid any such misperceptions. Althepal (talk) 22:22, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

OvBB is vaporware too, but it hasn't been totally rewritten to reflect that. I say wait and see. 24.241.229.253 (talk) 04:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you are being pessimistic to the extreme. ReactOS is currently at version 0.3.10. When it reaches 0.5, it will be suitable for everyday use on PC's as a decent beta-test OS with the distant-future 1.0 responsibly designated as a thoroughly-tested, feature-complete release without any non-trivial hardware incompatibilities. The 0.3.X series of alpha development is estimated to require until the end of 2009. The 0.4.X series of alpha development is estimated to require one year. Most of us will still be around at the end of 2010. --DavidWatersHC

Vaporware usually means something that disappears for a long time. To the contrary, reactos has seen steady and visible development. The intro mentions that the software is currently in the alpha state and not ready for regular use. Reub2000 (talk) 20:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Why do you think I'm being overly pessimistic? It's taken over 10 years to get where it is now, which is an unstable and unusable recreation of Windows 2000. After 10 more years, maybe it will be pretty stable. But what then? Can you think of any possible use for a free reproduction of Windows 2000 in the year 2020? By the way, I think it's premature and unnecessary to list 2009 as the release date for 0.3.11. Althepal (talk) 22:55, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

I really hate people, who don't know what they are talking about! How can you say it is a "reproduction of Windows 2000"? Just because the GUI (search, if you don't even know what this is..) looks a bit like the Windows Design "Classic"? That is the Design many people prefer. But such things and eyecandys can be added when the product is in late-Beta-stage. Also a huge part of the Kernel is already done and works really good. And even a huge part of the NT 6 and NT 6.1-API is already implemented. But back to Vapoware: ReactOS is a really Active project. (just see http://cia.vc/stats/project/ReactOS )75.170.61.39 (talk) 08:09, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I second the motion to properly qualify stability/usability in principle, although I feel a rewrite may not be entirely necessary to achieve this. A usability section would perhaps best suit this purpose. In particular, I don't like the "a few Windows programs already work relatively well" phrase in the introduction because it is ambiguous, and does not have the necessary material in the article later on to qualify what "a few" and "relatively well" actually mean. --LoneRifle (talk) 09:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Vivaty binaries works fine with ReactOS, so ReactOS is not as bad as seen by you. 83.22.143.2 (talk) 20:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Wikipedia is not a platform for promoting scam- and vapourware. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.49.18.203 (talk) 09:34, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Reverted edits by ‎IP

Though I'm not sure it's worth explanation, apart from topic's significance (I take it for notability for that matter) there is topic's history and other aspects that should be covered in the article. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 10:30, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

It is clear attempt to piggyback on Medvedev's name to increase the notability. The fact that some random guy in some random school visited by a president showed something obviously does not affect notability of that product. It also insignificant to a product history. At all. It had no consequences. Also, opinions of some random bloggers of no consequence, are of no consequence too. Product should stand on it's own merit, and not cover itself with names of presidents or random bozos. Unless you're going to show how president Medvedev, eccentric Alksnis or a random blogger are relevant to this operating system and are part of its history, I insist on removal of this as unrelated garbage intended purely to increase word count. — 178.49.18.203 (talk) 14:27, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Let's break this apart:

1. This product is notable without any connection to Medvedev. In fact, Medvedev adds nothing to its notability per WP:PRODUCT and/or WP:NSOFT. You may even notice that this article became GA before Medvedev-related events.
2. The fact that the OS was demonstrated to Medvedev (and Alksnis, see his bio) is important for the article. It is so important, that even allows you to make broad statement about the essence of the project (see your own comment in Proposing a deletion thread.
3. Thom Holwerda is not a random blogger; he is an editor of one of the most respected media on topic – OSNews; thus his opinion is valuable.
4. Word count? Seriously? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 16:51, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Proposing a deletion

Please mark this article for deletion as its topic is not notable. The entire "ReactOS" is a scam(vapor)ware product to get a budget funding from the Russians. 178.49.18.203 (talk) 09:29, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

 Declined: you miss the logical connection between these sentences; and even if the former was connected to the latter, I doubt you have anything to prove your position. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 09:50, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

The product described in the article is in pre-alpha stage for about a decade, is absolutely unusable, and shows no signs of reaching the production quality, ever. Such amateurish crap like ReactOS or BolgenOS have no encyclopedic significance. 178.49.18.203 (talk) 14:33, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Let's assume that this description is accurate. And so what? What can we say on ReactOS's notability based on this observation? — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 16:40, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

ReactOS Has its' own certificate from VeriSign 82.119.140.62 (talk) 15:08, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Is it significant OS? No, it is amateurish alpha-grade project; is it a subject of instruction is schools? no; are reviews available? No, circlejerking resources like OSNews do not count; does it have any technical significance? Again, no. It fails all inclusion criterias, what does it do in the Wikipedia? It is a sort of encyclopedia, not a directory of each and every failed software experiment. 178.49.18.203 (talk) 12:10, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but unlike OSNews you don't qualify for reliable source. Furthermore, the criteria of notability are quite different, see Wikipedia:Notability. Please, next time at least try to think a little over your rationale before wasting yours and (what is worse) my time. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 17:42, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure an outright deletion is really warranted. I see historic and tangential significance in the article as it relates to open source software development. However, and I don't mean to be harsh here, I believe it is obvious to anyone who doesn't have some personal investment in ReactOS that it neither has real-world applications nor ever will. A 13-year alpha stage project that shows no signs of maturing outside of nominal development really should not have such a glowing, self-serving, optimistic article. It clearly does nothing meaningful other than mislead readers. And this is coming from someone who at one point personally contributed to the project and wanted it to succeed; it's just not gonna happen, and in my view we can't have an article that gives a different impression. Althepal (talk) 01:51, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Arwinss

Can someone please create a redirect from Arwinss? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.247.173.225 (talk) 22:08, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

 Done. — Dmitrij D. Czarkoff (talk) 22:57, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

Pre- 0.2.0 versions

I don't see any info on any versions before 0.2.0. They do exist, ReactOS has a Wiki that mentions them. There isn't a lot of info, but we have versions with no info listed other than release date and version number..... so yeah. 187.210.64.220 (talk) 18:42, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

OS Family

Casual accusation of trolling doesn't show much WP:GOODFAITH. User CodeNameLisa deleted various items from the Infobox some of which seemed reasonable since the wording wasn't great, but it stills seems like these parameters should not be left empty, so I read the template and among other things specifically noticed the template parameter for family, which seemed very straightforward. The examples given in the template are 'unix family' and 'windows family', it would seem that ReactOS broadly falls under the Windows family. (In edit was rejected with the summary Not even producted by Microsoft, let alone part of Windows NT line. but as I pointed out in my edit the unix family consists of many operating systems, produced by many companies, the Windows family does not have to be only operating systems created by Microsoft). It seems that User CodeNameLisa does not want to fill in this template parameter, and went so far as to suggest a citation is needed just to fill in this parameter. Hopefully others will read this note and find a suitable values to fill in this and other empty parameters. -- 93.107.151.241 (talk) 13:47, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Proper referencing of content

Dear ReactOS authors, if you want that your material stays in the article, please back it up with third-party independent references, sources, interviews etc. There are many available! Don't use your own press releases from the reactos website. cheers Shaddim (talk) 18:52, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Nor fundraisers and whatnot, which are also primary self-sources and completely non-notable. Nor weblogs or forums WP:FORUM. And beyond referencing, no arbitrary lists of information WP:NOTDIR or other arbitrary stuff that could go on a primary web site WP:NOTWEBHOST. Nor anything else that Wikipedia is WP:NOT. Only identifying the subject and defining its WP:N notability by multiple secondary WP:RS. — Smuckola(talk) 19:03, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

http://news.softpedia.com/news/ReactOS-Goes-to-IndieGogo-Will-Run-Windows-and-Linux-Apps-Natively-435797.shtml is good enough, also you not even tried to find sources yourself. A crowdfunding campaign is clearly noteworthy. Shaddim (talk) 21:08, 29 December 2015 (UTC) In general, your excessive removal of content should have been discussed before here. Also, WP has an tradition of having (balanced) version tables, see Linux kernel, so no need and reason to delete it if it could be just collapsed. Shaddim (talk) 21:45, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

I'll reply just in case there's anyone else with the same extreme misconceptions of what Wikipedia is and is not. No, these particular deletions need not have been discussed here, because it has been exhaustively defined and discussed at all the precise links I gave in the edit messages, because as they are obviously patently unencyclopedic. Hence, they should never have existed. Regarding versioning, that is the height of WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS, as Wikipedia is defined whatsoever run by tradition. You are trying to compare a WP:NOTDIR about what is largely a hobby and which is notable primarily for its ideas and theoretical future potential, to one of the largest and most notable and impactful software projects and singular human undertakings in recorded world history. Linux's unbounded notability bears a constellation of articles, down to the infrastructure and social culture created just for its development. Its revisions are all major, and generally impact or define the course of global technology. There are lots of people who would be glad to explain what an encyclopedia is and isn't, what notability is, and what reliable sourcing is, in various other discussion-based areas of Wikipedia. Or, you could read the given links many times; I know they're tough at first, seriously, and I've had to read them a thousand times. But as it stands, the edit messages you've given are totally false even by your own stated description (restoring "reliable secondary sources" which are almost entirely the subject's own website, exactly as you just told everyone not to do above), and Softpedia is so inherently non-reliable that it's mentioned by name as a poster-child for the definition of non-reliable software sources in Wikipedia's guideline on the subject. Fundraising is again self-published, non-notable, and just a news blurb, WP:NOTNEWS WP:RECENTISM. Thanks and good luck. — Smuckola(talk) 22:38, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Despite your debatable claim for precision and well-definedness of policies: your application of them was very imprecise. Like the "version changelog removal", please show the policy not allowing them. Why is it in a high profile article like linux kernel still in? Now, fixed the deletion with more easy findable refs. Which should have happened from the beginning, fixing instead of excessive deletion. Also, the sourceforge ref is not a blog (despite claiming it themselves), but the official medium of sourceforge itself. PS: thanks for your preaching, I'm author myself long enough and know the policies (and (mis-)usage pattern of them). Shaddim (talk) 22:54, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Adding semi-protection

Please add semi-protection to the ReactOS page. People keep making useless edits and are adding wrong information to the page. This needs to stop.

 Not done requests for page protection must be made at WP:Requests for page protection
However, as there appears to have been only one piece of vandalism in the last three months, I doubt it will be protected - Arjayay (talk) 15:35, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

ReactOS 0.4.4 Released

https://www.reactos.org/project-news/reactos-044-released Released Feb 16, 2017. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Anttipng (talk • contribs) 20:45, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Describes reactOS itself as FOSS or FLOSS or open source ?

Looking at their mainpage I find "Free" and "open source" neither FLOSS or Libre. If you can't bring stronger evidence FLOSS is out. Shaddim (talk) 01:05, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

FLOSS stands for "Free/Libre Open Source Software". It is the adopted term of the European Council and EU documents regarding FLOSS. One could argue that debian or GPG are FOSS, not FLOSS, as there are parts of them falling under US export restrictions (so debian has a "non-US" repository); but ReactOS meets no such limitations.

Quite frankly, here in Europe, no one gives a ... about terminology; if we talk about something being "Open Source", it is the same as FLOSS. We might even call FLOSH "FLOSS", and circuit designs most obviously are NOT "software", no matter what the "mainpage" says.

As English is also a traffic language in the area of the European Council (which Russia is part of) and the EU (which it isn't), it is prudent to use the official terminology of the European Council. The usage of the EuroCouncil and EU even PUBLICISED the term "FLOSS" in the European Theatre. So in the USA, Asia and Australia, "FOSS" may be "more accepted" (I haven't found anyone not understanding FLOSS yet even there, IMO it was coined by Richard Stallman to make it 100% clear it is not shared source or freeware), but as ReactOS is a Russian project, the official term is "FLOSS". --Hornsignal (talk) 01:14, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm aware that the EU used "FLOSS" in some documents and I'm aware that RMS propaganizes FLOSS. But for Wikipedia matters only the reality (not what some entities want). 1.) uses ReactOS the term themselves? Looks like not, i find "free" and "open source" 2.) is FLOSS the common term for out side perception? looks like not, if I look at external reviews, e.g. this one in fact "open source" is most common. Nothing about libre, so FOSS seems the appropriate description (or the long form). Shaddim (talk) 01:20, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

FLOSS vs FOSS

ReactOS is FLOSS. There is no part of ReactOS that may not be in this form NOT been exported from the USA. There IS no part of ReactOS created in the USA. It is an European project, and the official European term is "FLOSS", not "FOSS". As there is no distinction between "ReactOS" and "ReactOS non-US" (like, eg, in debian), there is no reason AT ALL to deny it the official European term "FLOSS".

If it were a US project, en.wikipedia could very well apply the term "more accepted" in the US "FOSS". ReactOS is Russian, in the European theatre. So European guidelines have to apply, and European Council and EU have adopted FLOSS.

(And this is a matter of dispute because of... reasons?) --Hornsignal (talk) 01:06, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

As I stated above, show that they use it themselves. If not, next default is what is commonly in WP or in the IT domain. FLOSS is a not the most common term, the default. (PS: I come from the EU, FLOSS is not the official term or even a common term over here)Shaddim (talk) 01:09, 18 February 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, but Euro-Sceptics etc. just shouldn't write topics apart from their attempts to belittle European Commission and EU agancies in Wikipedia.

If you are "from the EU", then these links should be known to you if you have even a basic interest in EU-FLOSS-initiatives:

http://cordis.europa.eu/news/rcn/26957_en.html " new study on the economic impact of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) on the European information and communication technologies (ICT) sector has found that it could increase Europe's competitiveness."

http://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/study-open-source-software-can-boost-eu-economy/ "DG Enterprise commissioned a study on the economic impact of so-called Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) "

Open_Source_Observatory_and_Repository HERE ON WIKIPEDIA!!! Don't go there now and try to change OSOR's official language policy, that would be ridiculous.

http://www.genderit.org/resources/eu-survey-free-and-open-source-software "The original FLOSS survey sponsored by the European Union, and follow up FLOSS-US (Stanford) and FLOSS-Japan/FLOSS-Asia (Mitsubishi Research) showed that "Learning new skills" was the most common reason provided by participants for their FLOSS activities. Another significant finding of surveys is that there are far fewer women in FLOSS development than in software development as a whole*. In this two-part survey, once again supported by the European Union, we would like to find out, first, how learning is organised and perceived within the FLOSS community - by which we mean the universe of all those who participate in FLOSS-related activities, regardless of their beliefs or degree of activity. We also want to understand better the role/situation of women within this broad community."

http://flossimpact.merit.unu.edu/

Again: If you are not interested in the FLOSS initiatives in the European Theatre, that's fine - just don't talk about ER/EuroCouncil terminology. The FLOSS study and survey that, for many EU people, INTRODUCED the term "FLOSS", is not rare or unusual knowledge. If you are from the EU (from where? New Brunswick?), it is quite puzzling you didn't know it. --Hornsignal (talk) 00:15, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Without the end user noticing the change?

Is this still one of the aims? I see that it is no longer on their official website and so the reference has had to be pulled from the Internet Archive (though it is still quoted on a few forums). This suggests to me that maybe the developers have dropped that aim. After all, I would imagine one of their aims would be to create something faster/more stable than Windows. If they succeed in this, I think they would hope users would notice.

Maybe there's a current statement of ReactOS's aims somewhere.... — Smjg (talk) 17:59, 6 October 2017 (UTC)

Russian support

I have removed the unsourced claim that Russian gives "significant support" to reactos. It was back in 2015, that one commission in the telecommunications ministry named it as a possible basis for the development of an open-source desktop OS, but there is absolutely no info out there, that this was followed by any real steps.

ReactOS is not a "Russian OS" just because some Russian hackers participate and because there is a ReactOS foundation based in Moscow - which, according to the Russian WP page is actually defunct now (a claim that I have not been able to verify, but searching for Russian language info on the foundation gives very little results). There is also a ReactOS non-profit bases in Germany, the ReactOS Deutschland e.V., but this does not make ROS a "German OS" eithern. --Johannes Rohr (talk) 14:10, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

PS.: I just found that there was never a Moscow-based foundation to begin with, it was based in Saransk instead, and that it was dissolved in 2015, see https://egrulinfo.com/8583363/ --Johannes Rohr (talk) 11:12, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

But the project leader lived in Moscow till 2015 moment. Trust me I knew it. But this is just side note.--Jedi2be (talk) 12:18, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

And you are absolutely right, there were not any real steps from Russian government except published expert opinion --Jedi2be (talk) 12:22, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Project leader in what sense? Bragin was head of the Reactos Foundation, but I have my doubts whether it was actually doing anything besides those four PR stunts (the demonstrations they gave to Putin, Medvedev, Alksnis and their presentation to the Minsvyaz hearing). All the ReactOS hackfests were in Germany, also any real fundraising seems to have happend mostly in or be coordinated from Germany. The ReactOS wiki didn't even give any contact details for the fundation. --Johannes Rohr (talk) 12:36, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

In terms of project ruling and management, resolving internal disputes and conflicts, covering important parts of code review. Bragin was also the whole project coordinator. The place for haсkfest is always selected by convenience for the actual participants. And on the first hackfest Bragin was present. He stepped down around the end of 2017.--Jedi2be (talk) 00:35, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

@Jedi2be: Interesting. Did you ever ask him about whether he had any second thoughts about trying to forge an alliance with nationalist hardliner Viktor Alksnis? --Johannes Rohr (talk) 13:06, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

Nope--Jedi2be (talk) 13:08, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

BTW, if you look at his profile, you will find that he is remarkably inactive for a project leader. Some ten years ago, he still made some 40 edits per year. His last commit to reactos was 2016. So this gives the impression of a sham. --Johannes Rohr (talk) 16:16, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

It's a bit harsh to name this "forging an alliance". He just demonstrated ReactOS proof-of-work. Also I doubt that calling someone "nationalist hardliner" would be neutral for this article.188.170.83.120 (talk) 11:33, 16 April 2019 (UTC)