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ReactOS Updates

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Re: ReactOS Updates

#81

Post by Lammy »

mhd wrote: post #66
cies wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Win95 was pretty solid Win98SE was the peak IMHO. Nowadays I like KDE/Qt on Linux.

Note that I was only talking about the uniformity of the UI here. Stability-wise, every DOS Windows was pretty bad. Win98SE's toolbar were those big mozilla-ish ones, right, with both text and icon and no button border? Other than that, I can't remember anything distinguishing about the 98 UI. Were gradient in the window bars introduced with 98 or SE?

Win98 shipped the IE4 "Desktop Update" webified-Explorer that was an optional install for Win95 IE4, then Win98SE was Win98 with IE5.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#82

Post by theandrewbailey »

afavour wrote: post #67
theandrewbailey wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree 100%, but you can go further. Like, all the way: https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

Just looking at it I'm struck by how difficult it is to get the small details right. I don't even know exactly what's wrong but the spacing at the top and bottom of the title bar text is visibly wrong, and the menu bar is too high? I don't say it to be needlessly negative, it just amazes me how difficult this stuff can be. And I don't think I could actually use this, it would drive me insane for reasons I can't reall…

For trying to reverse engineer a look, what has been done with this theme is amazing! I use it in a VM and on a laptop. Between higher resolution/PPI screens than CRTs that displayed this old Windows look, and familiarity with XFCE, the spacing doesn't look weird to me.

For me, fonts are more important (and easier!) to get right than being pixel perfect, so I grabbed the real fonts from a Vista install DVD, and used those.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#83

Post by kmeisthax »

vbezhenar wrote: post #23
gostsamo wrote: post #17

There was some Quora answer according to which ReactOS is derived from an proprietary MS research code. Doesn't it mean it would have legal issues if ever they decide to use it in anything close to real scenario? Edit: reference to the question https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-about-ReactOS?share=...

ReactOS denies those accusations. If it's true and proved, probably users should stop using it, but until it's proved, I don't think that it's an issue. Like you've got some software, you checked its license, it's open source reimplementation of Windows, sounds good. For example Valve uses wine to run games on Linux, it's pretty legit.

WINE and ReactOS are separate projects and the allegations in the Quora post are specific to ReactOS. WINE doesn't handle NT kernel internals; it reimplements public Windows APIs and proxies kernel functionality to the host userland (usually GNU+Linux+X11 but occasionally Darwin+AppKit).

The main existential threat to WINE would be the Oracle/Google case being decided (sometime before June). If that winds up creating adverse precedent to Google's case, the entire Free Software movement will be negatively impacted. Actually, it'll be like 100 SCOs, given how much of our Free foundations are functionally-compatible reimplementations. We'll lose pretty much everything except scripting language runtimes, Rust, and C compilers; and there would surely be no way to do something like WINE if SCOTUS decides to trample all over the merger doctrine and starts granting copyright on functionality.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#84

Post by StillBored »

londons_explore wrote: post #69

What is ReactOS's endgame? It seems they will never have enough resources to become more popular than windows. And they will never manage to become the desktop OS of choice over Linux or Mac either. It seems to sit in an odd place with only a tiny userbase and no real goal, permanently playing catchup.

How much of the windows churn over the past decade has been widely accepted as good by the users?

They only really need to get to a XP64/win7 level of win32 capability with the ability to run a recent graphics stack and they will win. They have been getting closer to the "just" works bit every year. At some point I suspect their market share will start to rise enough that application vendors start assuring their programs work properly.

At which point they could have a larger market impact than macos has had for the past 30 years.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#85

Post by Koshkin »

londons_explore wrote: post #69

What is ReactOS's endgame? It seems they will never have enough resources to become more popular than windows. And they will never manage to become the desktop OS of choice over Linux or Mac either. It seems to sit in an odd place with only a tiny userbase and no real goal, permanently playing catchup.

When Linux the kernel will eventually be completely absorbed into systemd, and the Mac will turn into one giant Touch Bar, there will remain only two contenders for the reasoned user: Windows and ReactOS. (Unless Apple buys Microsoft by then, that is.)

Re: ReactOS Updates

#86

Post by higerordermap »

Koshkin wrote: post #85
londons_explore wrote: post #69

What is ReactOS's endgame? It seems they will never have enough resources to become more popular than windows. And they will never manage to become the desktop OS of choice over Linux or Mac either. It seems to sit in an odd place with only a tiny userbase and no real goal, permanently playing catchup.

When Linux the kernel will eventually be completely absorbed into systemd, and the Mac will turn into one giant Touch Bar, there will remain only two contenders for the reasoned user: Windows and ReactOS. (Unless Apple buys Microsoft by then, that is.)

Windows will turn into one big fullscreen candy crush. React OS IS THE end game.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#87

Post by hestefisk »

mhd wrote: post #56
johnchristopher wrote: post #5

ReacOS is a testament to how solid were Windows 2000/XP's UI for everyday tasks. I wouldn't mind being back in a Windows env/shop with ReactOS.

As with many things, I think from a pure UI perspective every Windows/Office release made things worse. Win95 was pretty solid, even improved on a few things that they took from the state of art at that time (Nextstep, Classic Mac, OS/2). The Taskbar being a good example. I'm still not sure that the move from actual buttons on a button bar to just a flat series of icons was right, and many such changes happened after…

I agree, NT4 to me was the peak of MS greatness. How I miss the blue boot screen and the speed of use.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#88

Post by hestefisk »

rbanffy wrote: post #12
crb wrote: post #10

The way Microsoft is moving, it's feasible to think that Windows 2000/XP will be open sourced before ReactOS is finished.

There probably is a huge amount of code inside Windows that Microsoft has a license to use, but no right to open.

Yes, like old OS/2 code.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#89

Post by mhd »

pjmlp wrote: post #80
mhd wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with many things, I think from a pure UI perspective every Windows/Office release made things worse. Win95 was pretty solid, even improved on a few things that they took from the state of art at that time (Nextstep, Classic Mac, OS/2). The Taskbar being a good example. I'm still not sure that the move from actual buttons on a button bar to just a flat series of icons was right, and many such changes happened after…

> Not that my hopes are very high in that regard, as Linux and the BSDs didn't manage to do that either, despite having most of the technology and even doing some half-hearted attempts (CORBA was a part of early GNOME)… D-BUS has taken up that role, but it doesn't get as much as COM/UWP, which many still don't realize that since XP the large majority of new Windows APIs are only available via COM, with a possible add…

DBUS would probably be closer to DCOM or even the Amiga's ARexx ports. Granted, with that plus XEmbed, you could get a lot of the benefits without an explicit object model/component system, but I haven't seen that done a lot in action. Linux users mostly go for 70s shell/pipes to cobble together parts. Better than nothing, but man, such wasted opportunities (and even something that doesn't require Lisp/Smalltalk/Oberon systems where everything is the PL anyway).

There's more GUI scripting done on Macs and Windows. Whole cottage industry automating Excel, for example…

Re: ReactOS Updates

#90

Post by mixmastamyk »

londons_explore wrote: post #69

What is ReactOS's endgame? It seems they will never have enough resources to become more popular than windows. And they will never manage to become the desktop OS of choice over Linux or Mac either. It seems to sit in an odd place with only a tiny userbase and no real goal, permanently playing catchup.

You may have not realized but Windows has been in maintenance mode for a while, since v10. Aka the last Windows.
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