Hacker News Reader

Comment by devenblake | Hacker News Reader

I think the writing is on the wall for ReactOS. When it gets close to being able to be used as a daily OS Microsoft will sue because they've been accused of ripping off the Windows Research Kernel[1] and because Windows NT3.5, 2000, and XP code has been floating around the net for a while now - it's going to get harder and harder to keep the room clean when anyone can contribute.

That being said, some of ReactOS's features are really cool and I hope something comes of it.

[1]: https://www.osnews.com/story/130275/reactos-a-ripoff-of-the-...

View on HN

I think the writing is on the wall for completely djfferent reasons:

1-Lack of funding and development progress. After 24 years, they're still not even close to version 1.0.

2-Microsoft is working toward Windows being freely available (zero cost). This dampens the motivation for an open source alternative.

3-Drivers for the latest hardware will always be an issue due to #1 above.

I think really the use case is to run in a VM to handle old code and keep security up to date. I wouldn't want to run it on bare hardware for that reason (3)

Well, security is a whole another kettle of fish. I'd be wondering how secure ReactOS is (or can ever be).

At the very least ReactOS makes for a good test suite for Wine...

Old code? Do you need to run 16 bit code under Win64? There are solutions for this. Here are a couple:

https://github.com/otya128/winevdm

https://www.dosbox.com/information.php?page=0

> Microsoft is working toward Windows being freely available (zero cost).

I don't see that happening anytime soon, other than the usual "hidden in the price of the machine" way it's usually handled. Not to mention, it would inevitably be tied to a cloud account at the price of your privacy, and your risk of being "deplatformed" from your own machines for doing something that Microsoft (or Hollywood, or one of their AIs) doesn't like.

I'd love for ReactOS to succeed, but they're up against a constantly-moving target.

>I'd love for ReactOS to succeed, but they're up against a constantly-moving target.

I don't think they are - my understanding is that it's primarily focused on Win98-type compatibility

Server2003

I don't see that happening anytime soon...

Today, you can download, install and use Win10 for free (zero cost) from Microsoft's web site.

https://beebom.com/get-windows-10-key-free-cheap/

Yeah, method 1 describes how to get unactivated copy that you can’t legally use for anything other than evaluation.

Zero Cost with "Zero Privacy and Control"

> 2-Microsoft is working toward Windows being freely available (zero cost). This dampens the motivation for an open source alternative.

Somehow I always thought, ReactOS had a use case in the Enterprise market, for companies that need an older version of Windows for existing and can't/don't want to upgrade to a newer one; maybe like HaikuOS? But I might be totally wrong on either.

Buying an old copy of Windows NT/2000/XP costs next to nothing on eBay, and you can be guaranteed that you get the platform that your legacy software was targeted for, and not a clone.

You might want security patches and support. An old cop from ebay won't get you that.

> Microsoft is working toward Windows being freely available (zero cost).

Are they?

I know they gave away free upgrades when they wanted more users for the Windows Store and UWP apps, but even then only upgrades, not free licenses.

Currently, it seems the licensing of Windows is giving GitHub and Azure a huge competitive advantage over other CI and cloud hosting providers. Why would they give that up?

At least for consumers, you can install Windows 10, never give it a license key, and it will run forever with almost no restrictions. (IIRC you're blocked from changing your wallpaper, there's an occasional nag prompt, but that's it.)

Are they?

Yes. You can download, install and use Windows 10 for free (zero cost) from Microsoft's web site. The only issue is you can't customize the user interface and there is a watermark telling you to "Activate Windows"

Why would they give that up?

Competition from "free software".

And because the "huge advantage" you speak of is non-existent. Azure has more Linux instances running than Windows.

OS licensing to individual users is no longer a significant profit source.

The huge advantage I was referring to is that no competitor can provide Windows instances without paying whatever price Microsoft sets and complying with whatever terms they set. They can make it infeasible to compete whenever they feel threatened.

As for downloading and using Windows for free, sure you can, but it's not allowed to. Using Windows illegally has always been an option even if it's slightly easier now. If you're a business, Microsoft will sometimes audit you, so you can't rely on this approach.

In any case, regardless of whether it's a good idea to use an unlicensed copy, where are you getting that they're working towards making in free?

They can make it infeasible to compete whenever they feel threatened.

The alternative is Linux instances --- which Azure also provides. In fact, as I said, Linux instances outnumber Windows instances on Azure.

If they have a huge advantage, the numbers don't show it. Amazon Web Services claims to host 57% of all Windows instances in the cloud.

....getting that they're working towards making in free?

Win10X

>The writing is on the wall

Naysaying.

ReactOS has been around for a long time and survived. And AIUI it is, now, more active than ever.

There's not even a hint that now, of all times, it is going to go away.

> 2-Microsoft is working toward Windows being freely available (zero cost). This dampens the motivation for an open source alternative.

Zero cost and Open Source aren't mutually exclusive. I could make a wonderful and free (as in beer, ie zero cost) operating system, then fill it with telemetry and other routines phoning home that nobody but me could deactivate, let alone remove, because I'm the only entity having access to the sources. Or, I could give public access to some sources, but prevent any modification+redistribution behind threats of legal action. That's not freedom at all.

Microsoft could reverse the OS cost by sticking a $1000 check to any Windows DVD, that is paying users to install it, but that wouldn't make it a bit more open or more trustworthy.

That's why we refer to our software of choice as FOSS: Free and Open Source Software, which is software that is free as in beer and free as in speech and open. Should someone manage to put suspicious code into FOSS software, its free and open nature allow the community to discover that malicious code and remove it, fork it if needed, without any fear for litigation, being blocked by restrictive licenses etc. I don't see Microsoft allowing that anytime soon with Windows or any other of their most important products.

I am fascinated with people's ability to continue to motivate themselves in face of hopeless complexity and possibility of zero (even negative) returns.

I of course hope something good comes out of ReactOS in whatever form - kudos to the developers that have kept it going for so long!

The only reason I'd work on it would be the learning experience. Sometimes to understand why things are done the way they are, you just have to build your own version of it. Windows sure has a bunch of interesting architectural properties.

Last time ReactOS came up here some folks were concerned about legality too, and I think there even was a salty Microsoft employee ranting about stolen code from the source leaks. I don't think ReactOS will ever reach the point of being a viable Windows replacement, so nothing Microsoft needs to be afraid of. I can somewhat see how you're personally offended that someone stole your code and doesn't credit you (but then again that wouldn't be exactly smart in that case). Best case for Microsoft is that ReactOS raises future Microsoft devs for free. Just check the progress every now and then, if someone stands out, hire them.

> Last time ReactOS came up here some folks were concerned about legality too, and I think there even was a salty Microsoft employee ranting about stolen code from the source leaks.

Link to the actual dicussion here with the comments of the MS employee:

https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=axelriet

ReactOS developer's explanation on how they work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2D9ExVc0G10

I saw the whole deal as cheap FUD.

They have nothing on ReactOS, but they want to discourage people from looking at it.

I have the same feeling. They say they don't think about taking it to ourt as ReactOS is too small to pose threat yet. But once they do, I bet it will become another SCO story: years of accusations without any substantial proof.

I'm not so sure. Why would Microsoft want to shut this down?

I suspect most of Microsoft's revenue comes from business and OEM licenses - neither of which are likely to switch to ReactOS. Even if ReactOS was stable and perfectly compatible with Windows, I doubt many people would switch to it. I don't have any data on what portion of users have installed an operating system on their personal computer, but I bet it's extremely small.

ReactOS isn't competing with Microsoft's most profitable software. By allowing ReactOS to exist, non-Windows users are more likely to stay within the Windows ecosystem. Microsoft still retains control of the development direction for the platform and they can still sell their software to those users.

Even ignoring the bad publicity Microsoft would get from the tech community for shutting down ReactOS, I just don't see a good reason for them to do it. It seems much more likely to me that Microsoft will use only legal action so far as to ensure ReactOS never becomes a viable "Windows killer", but I doubt they'll so far as to shut it down altogether.

I also think the only way for Windows to survive long term is to allow evolutionary branches and clones of it, like how the AT&T and BSD UNIXes and later on Linux and SysV and later on Darwin and Android managed to remain so successful.

>I suspect most of Microsoft's revenue comes from business and OEM licenses - neither of which are likely to switch to ReactOS. Even if ReactOS was stable and perfectly compatible with Windows, I doubt many people would switch to it

I see Microsoft leaving ReactOS alone until it starts biting into that pie. If manufacturers started making deals to have ReactOS pre-installed on machines, that's when Microsoft's going to go in.

I doubt they're going to bother otherwise though.

Wine has managed to survive so far. Hopefully ReactOS will be no different.

Wine is only a syscall translation layer. It's not an implementation of Windows.

Yeah but that makes Wine sound simpler than it is. The bulk of what makes ReactOS tick is from Wine.

Wine is a syscall layer plus a reimplementation of all user mode DLLs in a Windows installation.

I disagree about this (stability/compatibility) being the point where it could trigger Microsoft.

First this is a bad marketing move for Microsoft while is taking years to scrap the image of bad and monopolistic player that wants to control everything.

So i think that the time they would at least consider to take legal action against React OS, would be when (in a possible reality) it start to gets popularity and big players started to ship things with it.

Giving it would be this third-party (lets say Dell or Lenovo) that would be sued for it, and giving all the dangers such a move would bring, its very unlikely that any CEO in its right would make this move.

So thats why i think is highly unlikely, giving ReactOS is so small, that it cant be considered a threat, except for a CEO's with conspiratory tendencies (A guy like Ballmer would probably do this stupid mistake).

Wine is a much bigger target and threat than ReactOS (and ReactOS uses a lot of code from Wine) since unlike ReactOS, Wine can use the latest drivers and hardware via Linux. Also unlike ReactOS, Wine has been pushed a lot by companies like Valve explicitly so that people can move away from Windows.

Also if it is found that someone did indeed copy code from Windows, then they can simply replace that code. This isn't the first time such an accusation would happen to open source software - even the Linux kernel was targeted like that, yet you do not see people saying that the writing is on the wall for Linux because anyone can contribute to it.

i hope not; it seems like a really cool project. if microsoft were smart they'd support the development.

how much longer will closed-source OS's beat out open-source ones? it seems like at some point the markets will adopt it as a cheaper, more secure alternative. some areas of the public sector already are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_adopters

> if microsoft were smart they'd support the development

Really? I'd say they'd do whatever they can to obstruct its development, issuing baseless accusations and introducing quirks in the code to make sure ReactOS is incomaptible with other applications. This strategy worked miracles in the past and is one of the main reasons Bill became the richest person in the world.

you're probably right

Sue an open source project based in Russia? HAHAHAHAHA good luck with that.

Direct link (OSnews -> Register -> HN): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20341933

No. Microsoft will market Windows as the OS most compatible with Windows.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com