71–80 of 141 posts
Does anybody use ReactOS regularly? What's your experience with it? Very curious to see how far it's come for practical usage.
I get further with it each time, but there's still a lot of huge stumbling blocks (no SMP, for instance) that keeps me from using it for very long.
I've always had some admiration for ReactOS, but I also find it a bit baffling. It's been in development for so long, and it doesn't appear to be particularly stable. Granted, it's a difficult project, but I also struggle to see a valid use case for it. Why would I want to use this when I can use WINE or a virtual machine? And if it's aiming to emulate windows xp, surely this use-case gets less and less relevant over…
I'd love to see it advance far enough that one could drop in the open source code from Microsoft in it and run it. I doubt that'll happen any time in the next 20 years, however ...
I just realized - what does the Google vs Oracle ruling mean for ReactOS, and also Wine?
The lack of commercial purpose of ReactOS (and Wine) and it's primary goal of interoperability, plus the fact that it doesn't really damage the value of the original Windows platform, means it's probably a very easy case of fair use. Android isn't fair use, is a massive commercial endeavour, and has obliterated the value of mobile Java, while breaking interoperability with Java. Oracle winning the case will not be ki…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oracle will enforce a ruling in their favor globally, but fair use doesn't exist globally. Also it will make API patentable, and that's a very bad thing. Just think of OpenOffice und MySQL vs. LibreOffice and MariaDB. Oracle killed Java and now they still want money. Next step compatibility to the JVM is a copyright violation.
> Also it will make API patentable That's not true though the reality is even worse. Patents have a limited term of 20 years. If they win this case it is based on copyright law which has significantly longer terms. Currently that's valid until 70 years after the death of the content creator.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't need fair use for something that isn't copyright worthy like an API. It's like claiming you copied a book if the chapter headlines are identical.
> You don't need fair use for something that isn't copyright worthy like an API. This is true. However, bear in mind, Google argued that 1. APIs weren't copyrightable and 2. that if they were , their usage was fair. In this ten year court nightmare, they've lost fair use and of course, are likely about to lose on copyrightability. If the Supreme Court rules for Oracle, Android is copyright-infringing, it's already fa…
I just realized - what does the Google vs Oracle ruling mean for ReactOS, and also Wine?
We don't know. There are several substantiative questions of law and both parties' inability to give the court a clear picture of what an API is may result in the case not actually being decided. There's two questions up in the air with the case: 1. Whether or not you can claim copyright over the name of a function plus the combination of it's input types (an "API"). 2. Whether or not copying APIs can constitute fair…
I've always had some admiration for ReactOS, but I also find it a bit baffling. It's been in development for so long, and it doesn't appear to be particularly stable. Granted, it's a difficult project, but I also struggle to see a valid use case for it. Why would I want to use this when I can use WINE or a virtual machine? And if it's aiming to emulate windows xp, surely this use-case gets less and less relevant over…