- Ros-dev - ReactOS.org

Reverse Engineering Apps instead Windows
by theUser BL 08 Feb '06

08 Feb '06

Hi! I am not a programmer. So, it can be possible, that my idea is naive. You write here in the list, that the best would be, to make clean room reverse enginering, if an API isn't documented. But why you not disasseble the apps which you want to run on ROS instead of disassembling Windows? I see for it two advancements and one disadvancement. The advancements: 1. If you make clean room rev. eng., then you cut into halves the number of developer of ROS. Then only one half programs for the system. The other half writes documents. But if you disasseble the apps which running on Windows, then you are still allowed to publish the documentation of the API it used. You are not allowed to write then an application like that, what you have disassembled. But that is nothing you want. You want to write an OS, which can execute this app. And that is (hopefully) allowed. I don't know, if I am naive, but I think, if you see, that the program used a function void WindowsFunctuion (int, int, float); then you can write little test apps, with different values, to see what happens. So you don't need to disasseble Windows to look which happens. 2. If you make a clean room rev. eng. the people who write the document can make a mistake. Discribes the API wrong or not complete, so that the program which needs it still not runs. In this case the people who program, must say to the documenter, that he must do it again or better. But they can not communicate to much about it. Not to detailed. But this problem can be solved if you use the programs/drivers for Windows to disasseble insted of Windows itself. The only disadvantage I see is, that it can need more time to understand the code. If you "only" disassemble Windows, you comprehend the code in any time. But if you disassemble an app, it is at first the same. But if you have written the API for ROS and the app runs on ROS, then you must begin by zero by disassembling the next app, which don't run on ROS. And you must try to understand the code of this app and so on. So it can be possible, that this way takes longer, then clean room rev. eng. Windows direct. But I am not sure. Greatings theuserbl

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RE: [ros-dev] Wine Sync
by Murphy, Ged (Bolton) 08 Feb '06

08 Feb '06

Ge van Geldorp wrote > > From: Murphy, Ged (Bolton) > > > > James Tabor wrote: > > > > > We should have Wine synced into the SVN by now. 8^) What is > > > missing or not? > > > > Gé ;) > > :) > I'm still here. AFAIK, we agreed to transfer the Wine DLLs as late as > possible. > > GvG Yeah, I recall that being the idea. I think it's more important to get base libs like CTR, kernel32, user32 and GDI32 in. Pretty much nothing will build without those, so the Wine dll's would be useless anyway. Ged. ************************************************************************ The information contained in this message or any of its attachments is confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. The information may also be legally privileged. The views expressed may not be company policy, but the personal views of the originator. If you are not the addressee, any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other dissemination or use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact postmaster(a)exideuk.co.uk <mailto:postmaster@exideuk.co.uk> and then delete this message. Exide Technologies is an industrial and transportation battery producer and recycler with operations in 89 countries. Further information can be found at www.exide.com

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RE: [ros-dev] Wine Sync
by Murphy, Ged (Bolton) 08 Feb '06

08 Feb '06

James Tabor wrote: > We should have Wine synced into the SVN by now. 8^) > What is missing or not? Gé ;) Hehe ************************************************************************ The information contained in this message or any of its attachments is confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. The information may also be legally privileged. The views expressed may not be company policy, but the personal views of the originator. If you are not the addressee, any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other dissemination or use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact postmaster(a)exideuk.co.uk <mailto:postmaster@exideuk.co.uk> and then delete this message. Exide Technologies is an industrial and transportation battery producer and recycler with operations in 89 countries. Further information can be found at www.exide.com

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RE: [ros-dev] Anonymous SVN
by Murphy, Ged (Bolton) 08 Feb '06

08 Feb '06

Aleksey Bragin wrote: > Hi Pavel, > currently, only audited SVN server is publically accessible, its URL > is: svn://svn.reactos.org/audited. > As for the main svn server, it has been switched off from anonymous > access, because there were concerns, that it might contain > copyrighted material. As soon as we clear up the situation, > it may be > opened to public access again. > > On Feb 8, 2006, at 1:56 PM, Pavel S. Mironchik wrote: > > > Hi, > > I wonder if any anonymous access to reactos svn exists. > > or could I get login to read svn and track chnages? For convenience, you can also track changes via the ros-diff mailing list. Ged. ************************************************************************ The information contained in this message or any of its attachments is confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. The information may also be legally privileged. The views expressed may not be company policy, but the personal views of the originator. If you are not the addressee, any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other dissemination or use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact postmaster(a)exideuk.co.uk <mailto:postmaster@exideuk.co.uk> and then delete this message. Exide Technologies is an industrial and transportation battery producer and recycler with operations in 89 countries. Further information can be found at www.exide.com

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Anonymous SVN
by p.mironchik＠sam-solutions.net 08 Feb '06

08 Feb '06

Hi, I wonder if any anonymous access to reactos svn exists. or could I get login to read svn and track chnages? -- Best regards, Pavel S. Mironchik

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Wine Sync
by James Tabor 08 Feb '06

08 Feb '06

Hi, We should have Wine synced into the SVN by now. 8^) What is missing or not? Thanks, James

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Can rbuild be made to work with distcc?
by Andrew "Silver Blade" Greenwood 07 Feb '06

07 Feb '06

I know I've asked about this before but - maybe I missed something or I'm stupid - I never got it working. I'd like to be able to use distcc when compiling ReactOS, if that's at all possible. When I tried, rbuild built using it, but then rbuild went on to just compile locally. It'd be great if it can be modified to make it a simple flag to pass to rbuild or the makefile or something. For working on small parts it's probably not that beneficial, but it'd make a complete recompile much faster I think :)

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Re: [ros-svn] [jimtabor] 99: Add portcls to new branch.
by James Tabor 07 Feb '06

07 Feb '06

jimtabor(a)svn.reactos.org wrote: > Add portcls to new branch. > > > Added files: > trunk/reactos/drivers/sound/multimedia/ > trunk/reactos/drivers/sound/multimedia/portcls/ > trunk/reactos/drivers/sound/multimedia/portcls/portcls.c > trunk/reactos/drivers/sound/multimedia/portcls/portcls.def > trunk/reactos/drivers/sound/multimedia/portcls/portcls.h > trunk/reactos/drivers/sound/multimedia/portcls/portcls.rc > This was KISS! All stubs are based from OSR. http://www.osronline.com/ddkx/stream/pcdesign_78yv.htm Thanks, James

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FreeLdr
by Samuel Bronson 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

I am told that the sources for FreeLdr are all okay, except for the some of the bootsectors having been pretty much just disassembled from MS's. Is this true? If so, will someone please copy them over before I die of impatiance? Its not like we need those bootsectors, anyway. I mean, a lot of us on IRC have agreed that using GRUB to load FreeLdr is probably our best bet for now, until someone gets around to customizing boot code from GRUB or FreeDOS. Anyway, we don't need to worry about that until the installation CD boots ;-). -- Hi! I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature to help me spread!

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Place for 'proof' code
by art yerkes 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

In the course of auditing isapnp, I wrote a test case that proves that switch(a) { default: printf("foo\n"); break; } While peculiar, cannot be the product of directly reverse engineering visual C or gcc output (and likely any other compiler). Is there a place we want to put such apps? -- Discordant is the murmur at such treading down of lovely things while god's most lordly gift to man is decency of mind. Call that man only blest who has in sweet tranquility brought his life to close. If only I could act as such, my hope is good. -- Aeschylus' Agamemnon (translated by H. W. Smyth)

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Re: [ros-bugs] [Bug 1309] ReactOS' notepad does not show the status bar
by James Tabor 04 Feb '06

04 Feb '06

ReactOS.Bugzilla(a)reactos.org wrote: > http://www.reactos.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=1309 > ------- Additional Comments From j_anderw(a)sbox.tugraz.at 2006-02-04 02:29 CET ------- > Created an attachment (id=675) > --> (http://www.reactos.org/bugzilla/attachment.cgi?id=675&action=view) > implements status bar for notepad > > Hi, I will keep a note on this patch, Thanks, James

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Re: [ros-dev] Moving svn to another contrury or not
by Johannes Olofsson 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

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Re: Re: [ros-dev] Moving svn to another contrury or not
by Johannes Olofsson 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

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Re: Re: [ros-dev] Undocumented APIs
by Johannes Olofsson 03 Feb '06

03 Feb '06

Oh... I thought it might have been some kind of expression describing the feeling of "the project is going to #£€% anyway so why not move to Sweden as well..." My interpretation might have been biased by the somewhat edgy and often childish attitudes displayed in this thread lately. My opinion is that we HAVE to walk a few extra miles to regain the credability of this project. Even if this means more documentation and restrictions for the devoted practicians of reverse engineering. /Johannes Olofsson > Från: James Tabor <jimtabor(a)adsl-64-217-116-74.dsl.hstntx.swbell.net> > Till: ReactOS Development List <ros-dev(a)reactos.org> > Rubrik: Re: [ros-dev] Undocumented APIs > Datum: Wed, 01 Feb 2006 12:43:42 +0000 > Johannes Olofsson wrote: > > > > > > >>Man! Sweden here we come! > >>James > >> > > > > ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? > > Was this some kind of insult? > > /Johannes > > > WHAT? > NO! There was talk of moving the svn to Sweden. > James > _______________________________________________ > Ros-dev mailing list > Ros-dev(a)reactos.org > <a > href=http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev>http://www.reactos.org/ > mailman/listinfo/ros-dev</a>

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Related to Reverse Engeneering.
by Jerry 02 Feb '06

02 Feb '06

Here is a link to my privious post dealing with reverse engeneering. http://www.reactos.org/archives/public/ros-dev/2006-February/007691.html http://www.myersbigel.com/copyright_articles/copy_article2.htm "We conclude that where disassembly is the only way to gain access to the ideas and functional elements embodied in a copyrighted computer program and where there is a legitimate reason for seeking such access, disassembly is a fair use as a matter of law"--Sega Enterprises Ltd. v. Accolade, Inc -- Listen to Americas Debate Radio at 9 o'clock eastren on Wensdays! http://radio.americasdebate.net/listen/low (Dial Up) http://radio.americasdebate.net/listen/ (BroadBand) Call in at: 1-888-DEBATE-5 1-912-342-2345 Skype: callto://americasdebate

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Moving svn to another contrury or not
by Magnus Olsen 02 Feb '06

02 Feb '06

here is a letter from JvA. As most people know we have talk to move svn to another place. Dear ReactOS Crew, I spoke today with Lysators highest administrator Kalle, and he told me that there should be no problem what so ever for Lysator to host you. However, in order for us to host you we need a letter from you where you ask us to host you, and specify what you want to use the server for. This letter is needed for bureaucratic reasons. The root group needs to officially grant you the right to be hosted in our server hall, and marked as a Lysator-project. What the root group wants to know is what you intend to use the server for and what ports you need open in the firewall. The security rules in Lysator strictly says that only Lysator members are allowed to have administrator/root accounts on the servers in the server hall. The person who would administrate your server would be me. People outside Lysator, like the ReactOS developers, are however allowed to have normal SSH-accounts. Bandwidth is not a problem. Kalle told me that Lysator has been granted a secondary gbit-connection if the current one isn't enough. By the way, the server hall has UPS:es to make sure the servers are online even if there are would be electrical difficulties. When you have had a meeting and decided what you want hosted in the Lysator server hall, send me a letter where you ask us to host you and I'll give it to Kalle. When you officially have been granted to be hosted by us, you need to supply us with a server, 1U or 2U. If you want, I could build it for you here in Linköping if you collect money and let GreatLord buy the parts. The OS that the server would run would be Gentoo Linux. I will of course install Apache, SVN, cross-compile GCC and whatever you need on the server for you. Best regards, Fredrik Smedberg (JvA)

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RE: [ros-dev] Moving svn to another contrury or not
by Murphy, Ged (Bolton) 02 Feb '06

02 Feb '06

Rick Langschultz wrote: > I think ReactOS should have no Reverse Engineered code within it. > Reverse Engineering could be bad for the projects publicity and code-base. > I think that reverse engineering of the Microsoft Code is wrong!!! > And if programmers within this project want to reverse engineer they > should start their own projects, with their own names, and use their > own code. How would you like your product(s) to be stolen? It's not wrong, and it's not illegal. If Microsoft provided better documentation for their internal interfaces, then it wouldn't be required. Without reversing to discover how various parts work, ReactOS would struggle to make a fully compatable system. You don't think that writing an operating system to effectively clone the Windows methodologies is wrong, yet you think that reversing various parts to discover how it works is. That doesn't make sense to me. As long as there is no code copying, there is no problem. One person reverses and documents how something works, another person reads the docs and reimplements it. It's just like reading a book. It's no different than dismantling an engine, or a calculator, or a toy to understand how it works. Ged ************************************************************************ The information contained in this message or any of its attachments is confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. The information may also be legally privileged. The views expressed may not be company policy, but the personal views of the originator. If you are not the addressee, any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other dissemination or use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact postmaster(a)exideuk.co.uk <mailto:postmaster@exideuk.co.uk> and then delete this message. Exide Technologies is an industrial and transportation battery producer and recycler with operations in 89 countries. Further information can be found at www.exide.com

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Re: Re: [ros-dev] Moving svn to another contrury or not
by Johannes Olofsson 02 Feb '06

02 Feb '06

Sorry about that, It seems like my mail-client automatically used the same style as the original mail I responded to... Regards Johannes > Från: Alex Buell <alex.buell(a)munted.org.uk> > Till: ReactOS Development List <ros-dev(a)reactos.org> > Rubrik: Re: [ros-dev] Moving svn to another contrury or not > Datum: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 14:25:18 +0000 > On Thu, 2 Feb 2006 13:37:24 +0000 (GMT) "Johannes Olofsson" > <johannes_olofsson(a)spray.se> waved a wand and this message magically > appeared: > > Your message was full of html tags. Can you make sure your mailer uses > plain text instead of html. Some of us don't use clients that likes > html, you know. > > -- > <a href=http://www.munted.org.uk>http://www.munted.org.uk</a> > "Honestly, what can I possibly say to get you into my bed?" - Anon. > _______________________________________________ > Ros-dev mailing list > Ros-dev(a)reactos.org > <a > href=http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev>http://www.reactos.org/ > mailman/listinfo/ros-dev</a>

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Life after audit
by Mikhail Y. Zvyozdochkin 02 Feb '06

02 Feb '06

Hi all, Steven Edwards wrote at http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/ru/news_page_14.html: "One final note, this audit of the code is going to take a long time. It could take years, but it will happen, this project will come out better than it was before". Whether means it, what all development will be suspended for the period of audit? I understand necessity of audit, but I am afraid, that in a year the urgency of the project will catastrophically fall, and it will hopelessly lag behind from Microsoft :(. I want, that ReactOS have survived... WBR, DarkHobbit

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Undocumented APIs
by Casper Hornstrup 01 Feb '06

01 Feb '06

I'd like to put this amendment to the IP policy to a vote, but first let's start with the 7 day discussion period. "If an API or a particular behaviour of an API which is part of the Windows(R) operating system is not publicly documented by Microsoft, then the API or the particular behaviour of the API may only be implemented in ReactOS if there is documentation of published software which depend on the API or the particular behaviour of the API, and which is not only distributed with the Windows(R) operating system. The documentation must be available in the repository." I argue that the more ReactOS differ from Windows, the harder it will be to prove that ReactOS is a derivative work of Windows. Med venlig hilsen / best regards Casper Hornstrup Chief Executive Officer @ Eudicon ch(a)eudicon.com / www.eudicon.com (+45) 27 29 36 20

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RE: [ros-dev] Undocumented APIs
by Murphy, Ged (Bolton) 01 Feb '06

01 Feb '06

Casper Hornstrup wrote: > "If an API or a particular behaviour of an API which is part of the > Windows(R) operating system is not publicly documented by > Microsoft, then > the API or the particular behaviour of the API may only be > implemented in > ReactOS if there is documentation of published software which > depend on the > API or the particular behaviour of the API, and which is not only > distributed with the Windows(R) operating system. The > documentation must be > available in the repository." > What if a particular API is required for a particular program to work, but that API is undocumented by both Microsoft and the owner of the said program? Also, what about using code from 3rd parties which might contain undocumented API's, like Wine for instance? Ged. ************************************************************************ The information contained in this message or any of its attachments is confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. The information may also be legally privileged. The views expressed may not be company policy, but the personal views of the originator. If you are not the addressee, any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other dissemination or use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact postmaster(a)exideuk.co.uk <mailto:postmaster@exideuk.co.uk> and then delete this message. Exide Technologies is an industrial and transportation battery producer and recycler with operations in 89 countries. Further information can be found at www.exide.com

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Re: Re: [ros-dev] Undocumented APIs
by Johannes Olofsson 01 Feb '06

01 Feb '06

> > Man! Sweden here we come! > James > ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Was this some kind of insult? /Johannes

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RE: [ros-dev] Undocumented APIs
by Murphy, Ged (Bolton) 01 Feb '06

01 Feb '06

art yerkes wrote: > > Which is of course fine, but since ReactOS has no use for > it, why commit it? > > It isn't needed to meet the goals of ReactOS. > > > > Casper > > I don't agree with this sentiment at all. We've always > before been proactive > about implementing at least visible parts of the API to make > it more likely > that applications we didn't know about would have a chance to > work. I think > that's a reasonable way to work, especially if you're working > in an area you've > got a good understanding of. I completely agree with this. Some of the rules being proposed seem to be a little over cautious. This 'shake up' shouldn't put a strangle hold on the project. Ged ************************************************************************ The information contained in this message or any of its attachments is confidential and is intended for the exclusive use of the addressee. The information may also be legally privileged. The views expressed may not be company policy, but the personal views of the originator. If you are not the addressee, any disclosure, reproduction, distribution or other dissemination or use of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact postmaster(a)exideuk.co.uk <mailto:postmaster@exideuk.co.uk> and then delete this message. Exide Technologies is an industrial and transportation battery producer and recycler with operations in 89 countries. Further information can be found at www.exide.com

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Re: [ros-dev] Re: Undocumented APIs
by Johannes Olofsson 01 Feb '06

01 Feb '06

> Too vague in my book. I request a reformulation. I sort of get what you > try to indicate, but it's too easy to explain incorrectly and the > meaning as I understand it doesn't include enough APIs to be of any > significance to note down in the IP policy. There are also arguments > against it, like the educational purpose of being able to lecture at > universities on the subject of NT using ReactOS. Why would you want to lecture on the subject "alternative ways to implement undocumented APIs that are not used by any 3rd party software"? /Johannes Olofsson

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Flow chart
by Ged Murphy 01 Feb '06

01 Feb '06

Hi all. Would someone be willing to put a flow chart together on moving code from the main branch to the audited branch. I think if something like this is put in place, it would ensure everyone was operating in the same manner. Pasted from IRC when discussing the audit methodologies: <GedMurphy> I understand what qualifies for being 'unclean' (which it seems most of ReactOS will be initially), in which case it should be placed into the intermediate repository. However it isn't clearly stated what happens then. If documentation can't be located or test cases aren't written, how is that code further analized? <sedwards> If the code is 'unclean' then someone need to mark themselves down to rewrite it on the audit page <GedMurphy> but what if it's not unclean, but there is no documentation for it? Is it automatically deemed to be unclean in that case? <GedMurphy> e.g. Exception wrote most of the original part of the network stack. I'm positive this was done in a clean manner, but where are the docs? Does he still have them? What happens if there aren't any or they have been lost? <GedMurphy> does rewriting them automatically mean that code is then ok? <GedMurphy> senario 2. No docs can be found, but someone writes some. If that code was ripped from Windows assemblies but we provide docs, that code might get through. However it doesn't get around the fact that it's been 'borrowed' from Windows dissasemblies. <GedMurphy> at what point in the audit is the code checked for similarities to the Windows counterpart, if at all? <GedMurphy> This is what I mean by set methodologies. Something should be laid down, like a flow chart I would offer to do it, but I think one of our more experienced dev would make a better job. Maybe someone who has done something like this before. I was hoping for one to follow for myself to make sure I don't drop a b*ll*ck :) Ged.

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