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ReactOS 0.4.16

reactos.org

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Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#21

Post by bluGill »

Almondsetat wrote: post #18
MisterTea wrote: post #17

I do a lot of industrial automation and it is the one thing that keeps me boat-anchored to Windows. Every little programmable doodad like signal conditioners and temperature transmitters have their own USB programming cables and their own, mostly crappy windows config software. PLC software is another abomination, hopelessly Windows anchored, bloated GUI monsters, some built on top of Visual Studio (Beckhoff TwinCAT.…

Why not spend some money on an uncensored LLM to reverse engineer or create an open clean room reimplementation?

That is only recently become an option you could try, and we don't know long term how well it will work. Remember laws may change (and there are some legal issues around LLMs that are not clear at all)

Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#22

Post by wpm »

Almondsetat wrote: post #18
MisterTea wrote: post #17

I do a lot of industrial automation and it is the one thing that keeps me boat-anchored to Windows. Every little programmable doodad like signal conditioners and temperature transmitters have their own USB programming cables and their own, mostly crappy windows config software. PLC software is another abomination, hopelessly Windows anchored, bloated GUI monsters, some built on top of Visual Studio (Beckhoff TwinCAT.…

Why not spend some money on an uncensored LLM to reverse engineer or create an open clean room reimplementation?

Because that requires breaking the almost assured stipulation in a software license agreement that says "You will not try to RE this software", which is fine to ignore for home gamers, but not something you generally want to mess around with in a business setting where the risks are much higher.

Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#23

Post by kvuj »

Almondsetat wrote: post #18
MisterTea wrote: post #17

I do a lot of industrial automation and it is the one thing that keeps me boat-anchored to Windows. Every little programmable doodad like signal conditioners and temperature transmitters have their own USB programming cables and their own, mostly crappy windows config software. PLC software is another abomination, hopelessly Windows anchored, bloated GUI monsters, some built on top of Visual Studio (Beckhoff TwinCAT.…

Why not spend some money on an uncensored LLM to reverse engineer or create an open clean room reimplementation?

The reason industrial PLCs cost so much is because of their reliability. They need to be working flawlessly 50 years in the future. Trying to vibe code your way into a PLC compiler feels like it could blow up in your face after a little while.

That is also ignoring the safety PLCs with safety instructions that are certified for use with ISO 13849. Can you imagine getting inspected because your safety subsystem cause injury and you explain how you don't use the officially licensed software to program it.

For personal project, that could be fun however.

Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#24

Post by Almondsetat »

wpm wrote: post #22
Almondsetat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not spend some money on an uncensored LLM to reverse engineer or create an open clean room reimplementation?

Because that requires breaking the almost assured stipulation in a software license agreement that says "You will not try to RE this software", which is fine to ignore for home gamers, but not something you generally want to mess around with in a business setting where the risks are much higher.

Reverse engineering is protected under certain conditions, even if the EULA prohibits it

Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#25

Post by Almondsetat »

kvuj wrote: post #23
Almondsetat wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not spend some money on an uncensored LLM to reverse engineer or create an open clean room reimplementation?

The reason industrial PLCs cost so much is because of their reliability. They need to be working flawlessly 50 years in the future. Trying to vibe code your way into a PLC compiler feels like it could blow up in your face after a little while. That is also ignoring the safety PLCs with safety instructions that are certified for use with ISO 13849. Can you imagine getting inspected because your safety subsystem cause…

You completely stripped what I said from its context. GP explicitely said they donate to ReactOS in the hopes of one day being able to run that industrial software on it instead of on Windows. In this context, running the software on ReactOS instead of official Windows would already fail your hypothetical inspections. This is why I suggested trying the LLM route.

Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#26

Post by TonyTrapp »

tiahura wrote: post #3

This seems like the sort of project that ai would excel at. /goal excel runs flawlessly.

It's also the kind of project where LLM license-washing is going to be the most dangerous for the project itself. Projects like Wine and ReactOS have to be extremely careful about what kind of code to accept, because taking code from one of the countless Windows source leaks is just a recipe for legal disaster.

Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#27

Post by jmcqk6 »

Almondsetat wrote: post #24
wpm wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because that requires breaking the almost assured stipulation in a software license agreement that says "You will not try to RE this software", which is fine to ignore for home gamers, but not something you generally want to mess around with in a business setting where the risks are much higher.

Reverse engineering is protected under certain conditions, even if the EULA prohibits it

The thing about this type of thinking is that it often requires risking millions of dollars and a major distraction from your primary goal in order to find out if it's true or not.

Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#28

Post by Almondsetat »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #27
Almondsetat wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reverse engineering is protected under certain conditions, even if the EULA prohibits it

The thing about this type of thinking is that it often requires risking millions of dollars and a major distraction from your primary goal in order to find out if it's true or not.

As would be running critical software certified for Windows on ReactOS as envisioned by GP. So, either we talk about an enterprise setting, in which GP already fucked up, or a more personal setting, in which both whaat GP and I said are reasonable

Re: ReactOS 0.4.16

#29

Post by ploxiln »

MisterTea wrote: post #17

I do a lot of industrial automation and it is the one thing that keeps me boat-anchored to Windows. Every little programmable doodad like signal conditioners and temperature transmitters have their own USB programming cables and their own, mostly crappy windows config software. PLC software is another abomination, hopelessly Windows anchored, bloated GUI monsters, some built on top of Visual Studio (Beckhoff TwinCAT.…

You can forward USB devices into a VM. About 15 years ago I was using a Windows VM on Linux to program PIC18F??? devices with the custom (JTAG based?) programmer provided by Microchip. The upside is that you can preserve and share this windows environment for other coworkers, and have separate VMs for different projects (perhaps one you can update, and one you can't ...)
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