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ReactOS Updates

reactos.org

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Re: ReactOS Updates

#101

Post by progforlyfe »

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.

Preservation. Think a library or museum archiving a piece of human culture. Not just the OS itself but the programs that run on the OS. If ReactOS succeeds you'd be able to run those Win95/98/XP era programs literally forever (think 100 years from now) as long as ReactOS is kept up to date and compiled on new processor architectures. Sure you can target running the real original OS as well but this requires a virtual machine and doesn't always work right, since drivers have to be written for the legacy OS to support the VM virtual hardware in some cases.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#102

Post by benbristow »

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'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 that (culminating in the horror of the ribbon bar).

To be fair, they've left the classic mode in. Right click the taskbar, then click 'taskbar settings', scroll to the bottom and there's a dropdown for 'combine taskbar buttons'. Change it to 'Never' for the classic mode. (This is also present in Windows 7/8)

I prefer the new mode, less mouse movement required and looks tidier personally but it's nice the option is still there.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#103

Post by cormacrelf »

Hamcha wrote: post #30
rbanffy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If they cared they'd try something like what OpenSolaris did (file-based GPL alternative so they could have copyleft on code but still ship binaries). I'm not advocating for another viral license but there are definitely ways around that problem. MS itself already did it in part once (WRK) so they clearly have looked into it at least once before.

This is bang-on what MPL 2.0 is for

Re: ReactOS Updates

#104

Post by GNOMES »

Bryan Lunduke on Youtube and LBRY, has as a wishful hope for the future of ReactOS.

He imagines if Microsoft with their whole "We One of his arguments is that either method would take minimal effort from Microsoft, and would show their love of Open Source. The code could be made available as is, and allow the ReactOS project to continue burden of development/support.

His second major argument is that Microsoft would not take a financial hit from releasing these old versions. The OS's are no longer available for purchase in stores, and MS no longer provides support. Could also convince Embrace/Extend/Extinguish gray beards that Microsoft is "changing", making them more likely to trust MS.

Ultimately he theorizes Microsoft could only make finical gain from this. This comes from the positive community views (and wallets), and they could be positioned to repackage it as a "Windows Classic". This would allow them to "sell" and support old code again that would be perfect for legacy software, yet run on modern hardware.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#105

Post by sitzkrieg »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #90
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.

is this why windows 10 continues to get new features?

Re: ReactOS Updates

#106

Post by edgyquant »

GNOMES wrote: post #104

Bryan Lunduke on Youtube and LBRY, has as a wishful hope for the future of ReactOS. He imagines if Microsoft with their whole "We One of his arguments is that either method would take minimal effort from Microsoft, and would show their love of Open Source. The code could be made available as is, and allow the ReactOS project to continue burden of development/support. His second major argument is that Microsoft would…

Making Windows open source has been brought up before, and I’m just quoting what has been said and it could be wrong, but lots of people made the claim that Windows is such an old codebase with 25+ years of different people (and, sometimes, companies) involved that it’s a huge legal task to be able to open source it. So even if it was in the interest of Microsoft they’d have to remove a lot of legacy code or track down individual contractors and get permission to do so (not to mention hardware support that may have been given to them under a proprietary license.) Again this could be bs, I’m not sure, but it makes sense if this is the case.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#107

Post by monocasa »

GNOMES wrote: post #104

Bryan Lunduke on Youtube and LBRY, has as a wishful hope for the future of ReactOS. He imagines if Microsoft with their whole "We One of his arguments is that either method would take minimal effort from Microsoft, and would show their love of Open Source. The code could be made available as is, and allow the ReactOS project to continue burden of development/support. His second major argument is that Microsoft would…

More than their prod code, I'd love them to open their win32 test suite.

That's something that's very usable piecemeal, and is probably more useful long term than a single version of a code dump like we'd probably get if they open sourced.

Re: ReactOS Updates

#108

Post by dlvktrsh »

DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #14
pcthrowaway wrote: post #8

When I followed this link via Chrome, a tool tip popped out of my address bar ("Did you mean reactjs.org?" with some warning about attackers using deceptive URLs). I wonder if there's a way to whitelist URLs with Google to prevent users from seeing this message. Especially since I believe ReactOS has been around long before ReactJS

Chrome user here - I didn't get any notifications or popups like that. Do you have a third-party Chrome extension installed? I know a lot of AV vendors love to auto-install their own cyber-security browser extensions that report stuff like that, so it could be that?

it's definitely a feature that's been around chrome (I'm remembering from both mobile and desktop) for a while. I think the way they show this message has changed over time and probably don't show it if you think you're an advance enough user, that'd be my guess. or maybe you have an extension that stops u from seeing this

Re: ReactOS Updates

#109

Post by dlvktrsh »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #37
DaiPlusPlus wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome user here - I didn't get any notifications or popups like that. Do you have a third-party Chrome extension installed? I know a lot of AV vendors love to auto-install their own cyber-security browser extensions that report stuff like that, so it could be that?

No*, but I visit reactjs.org regularly, so this could also be due to Google tracking me. In full disclosure, I clicked the article thinking it was about ReactJS. I've never used ReactOS, though I've been aware of the project (and visited their webpage) before ReactJS was even a thing. Edit: This could very easily be from AdBlock Plus as well, but the tooltip was under the address bar (and it doesn't reappear when I v…

that's thoughtful! I'm gonna do it too. maybe you can find an appropriate feedback section somewhere too, but who knows how useful that is
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