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A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

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Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#191

Post by echelon »

swebs wrote: post #150

I know this is only tangentially related, but could you verify the famous HN post by an anonymous Windows kernel developer explaining why Windows is so much slower than Linux http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-w... It's one of the most insightful posts I've seen on this site, and if true, would certainly help to explain why Windows is so much worse than other operating systems :)

Interesting read, but I think the author is somewhat jaded.

> We fill headcount with nine-to-five-with-kids types,

What is wrong with having a life outside of work? Or children and responsibilities? Does anyone believe these make for worse engineers? It's not even legal for companies to force parents out of their workforce.

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#192

Post by dboreham »

Fascinating thread. You don't often see this kind of thing discussed openly.

One personal experience: years ago I worked on a project where I had the task (I will not go into why..) of re-implementing some tricky, non-documented functionality for which I had the source code for another implementation available to study, but also the goal to make it hard to prove from inspection of the code I wrote that it had been inspired by said original code. So in essence, I had the task we postulate the ReactOS developers had, if they indeed were using leaked ntoskrnl source as a reference. Ok, so when I had that task I did things like re-order the declaration of variables; change variable names; think of ways to refactor such that logic was split over a different number of functions; and on and on. Basically: I did a bunch of things designed to NOT permit the kind of "ah ha! : these things are the same" analysis that we see here. You might call this "derivation obfuscation".

So I'm a bit confused: either the ah ha analysis is flawed; or the RactOS devs just didn't care about being found out, right? Because if they had wanted to, it wouldn't have been hard to obscure, at least to some degree, that they were deriving their code from MS's original source.

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#193

Post by cptaj »

jeditobe wrote: post #148

Hello from ReactOS team! We don't use the leaked code from MS, We don't use Windows Research Kernel, We thank you for the PR campaign you have stared 'pro bono' for our project! ;D

Heh, thats a very guilty looking answer.

True about the free campaign but that might backfire.

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#194

Post by ABCLAW »

SllX wrote: post #36
opportune wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reverse engineering is usually considered a violation of proprietary software IP right (not sure the exact legal term)? I know at every company I've ever worked at I've been told to never under any circumstances attempt to decompile or reverse engineer another company's proprietary software product. Maybe that's just legal CYA but decompiling+documenting then re-implementing sure sounds like stealing to me...

In the United States, clean room reverse engineering is legal for interoperability purposes. In general reverse engineering is legal unless there is a contract involved prohibiting it. Unless you’re reusing the original source code, there’s no copyright violation per se, simply functionality reimplemented in a compatible manner. The lengths that ReactOS goes to might actually be overkill, but no one can credibly clai…

>Unless you’re reusing the original source code, there’s no copyright violation per se

Dunno about that one, chief. Copying non-literal elements of code can still be infringing.

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#195

Post by tinus_hn »

axelriet wrote: post #70

Thanks for the link, o for a bunch of new followers on Quora today and was wondering why :) There are lots of good answers in this thread. In particular, someone took the time to look at the code, and that person wrote it only took them minutes to find similarities that make my opinion difficult to dismiss. About the lack of documentation, consider that only a tiny fraction of the kernel’s internals surface in the DD…

Most of the kernel code in Reactos is from far before Alex started working at Microsoft. Also the official Microsoft documentation is of course far from the only ‘Windows Internals’ documentation.

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#196

Post by testvox »

amrrs wrote: post #153
jeditobe wrote: post #148

Hello from ReactOS team! We don't use the leaked code from MS, We don't use Windows Research Kernel, We thank you for the PR campaign you have stared 'pro bono' for our project! ;D

Why would you call it a PR campaign if it wasn't favoring you? Just curious.

Not only is ReactOS getting a lot of coverage it otherwise would not have, but the core claim seems to be that ReactOS is actually such a good re-implementation of Windows that actual Windows engineers think it couldn't have been accomplished without using the Windows source code.

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#197

Post by mapcars »

Veen wrote: post #184
mapcars wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't you reply to ReactOS devs here pointing that what you are saying is clearly wrong?

What would he say other than what he has already said? The ReactOS devs are not addressing the substantive points. No point in him repeating himself.

Em, for example how the book linked here several times is not documentation on kernel internals?

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#198

Post by dragonwriter »

Udo wrote: post #190
jeditobe wrote: post #148

Hello from ReactOS team! We don't use the leaked code from MS, We don't use Windows Research Kernel, We thank you for the PR campaign you have stared 'pro bono' for our project! ;D

This is an utterly insufficient answer to the allegation that you copied internal data structures entirely from the NT kernel, including (why?) their names. Brushing this off as a free "PR campaign" only works if those NT programmers simply made everything up. That's possible, because we as the general public have no way of knowing. But it's hard to ignore that there are just two possible scenarios here, nothing in b…

> This is an utterly insufficient answer to the allegation that you copied internal data structures entirely from the NT kernel

It's quite sufficient when you consider that, unless the allegation is made in a court of law, it's in ReactOS’s interest for it to be perceived as plausible. Being perceived as either an actual (if unauthorized) fork of Windows or as something that a Microsoft insider could reasonably mistake for one is not bad for ReactOS.

And if Microsoft is going to bring the allegation in court, no matter the merits, the lawyers defending ReactOS aren't going to want lots of detailed public statements to have been made first.

> Brushing this off as a free "PR campaign" only works if those NT programmers simply made everything up

It works and, I'd argue, is the only sane strategy so long as Microsoft isn't suing them. Because, among other reasons, without such a suit it is nothing more than a free PR campaign especially if it is true.

Admittedly, it doesn't maximize imaginary internet debate points, but while that maybe be OPs interest, it doesn't seem to be ReactOS’s. (Also, probably not Microsoft’s, who I imagine so long as they aren't suing ReactOS would prefer not drawing attention to it, either.)

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#199

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #191
swebs wrote: post #150

I know this is only tangentially related, but could you verify the famous HN post by an anonymous Windows kernel developer explaining why Windows is so much slower than Linux http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-w... It's one of the most insightful posts I've seen on this site, and if true, would certainly help to explain why Windows is so much worse than other operating systems :)

Interesting read, but I think the author is somewhat jaded. > We fill headcount with nine-to-five-with-kids types, What is wrong with having a life outside of work? Or children and responsibilities? Does anyone believe these make for worse engineers? It's not even legal for companies to force parents out of their workforce.

[deleted]

Re: A Kernel Engineer at Microsoft's Answer to “What Do You Think about ReactOS?”

#200

Post by ido »

echelon wrote: post #191
swebs wrote: post #150

I know this is only tangentially related, but could you verify the famous HN post by an anonymous Windows kernel developer explaining why Windows is so much slower than Linux http://blog.zorinaq.com/i-contribute-to-the-windows-kernel-w... It's one of the most insightful posts I've seen on this site, and if true, would certainly help to explain why Windows is so much worse than other operating systems :)

Interesting read, but I think the author is somewhat jaded. > We fill headcount with nine-to-five-with-kids types, What is wrong with having a life outside of work? Or children and responsibilities? Does anyone believe these make for worse engineers? It's not even legal for companies to force parents out of their workforce.

It's probably somewhat preferable to the company that the employee sees their job as their entire purpose in life, but realistically most people beyond their 20s do not stay in that state of mind and an experienced 40 year old "9-5 with kids" probably brings some benefits to the team that the "fully committed" 28 year old with no extracurricular interests does not.
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