Gentlemen,
I'd never thought I'd take part in such a debate. Let me comment from a
position of someone who's been folowing this project with great
anticipation and high hopes.
First of all I must say Alex's work and commitment to the project is
outstanding. Maybe it is that he somehow makes his work most visible (I'm
not trying to diminish the great work that all contributors have done).
However the discussion here is about something else. I do not think the
discussion should be going along the lines if things can be done any other
way or not. Also I wouldn't think that what someone called 'intent' is the
most important thing (it maybe would be if it saved lives of people). The
thing here is not about whether Alex understands the code he put into SVN
(extensively) commented.
Let me provide an example here on a bit different level: suppose I like
what a commercial(!) Java (or any other decompilable language) program does
and decide to implement an open-source implementation. Would it be
acceptable if I used decompiler to produce a readable code, study it,
understand it, copy and paste those decompiled sources into my project and
comment it extensively? I do not think so. The argument of understanding
the code is irrelevant in this case as it is irrelevant in ReactOS's case.
Is there so much difference between decompiled Java source code and
disassembled binary (especially when the source has been assembly
probably)?
The issue here is about the method and I believe (and that makes me sad)
the method Alex used was against the law and no good intent can change
that. I think copy-and-paste is illegal under any circumstances (I am
strong oponnent of American patent law). I wish very much that Alex and
Hartmut as well continue to work on this project and we see a day when it
becomes an alternative to Windows. But this case puts the project into big
danger in my opinion.
Just my 2cents.
Best regards
Radovan Skolnik
Recent developments have been quite heated recently, and I would just
like to add in some of my own opinions. If code was directly copied
from Windows then it should be removed. Period. This is against the
aims and charter of this project. If Windows was only disassembled to
gain information on how it works then I think this falls under fair
use. Whether a spec should have been written and another person
implement the spec is a topic which I'm sure will be discussed for a
while to come. This is my point of view on the matter and I will not
discuss it further.
It is unfortunate that WaxDragon is also leaving the project, I'm sure
he will be missed. But people do have lives to lead as well. I'm
sure that in the future I will have to leave the ReactOS project too,
and probably for the same reasons, such as family and work. Ideally I
would like all developers / testers and other contributers to stay
with the project, but I understand that this isn't feasible and I
respect them for what they have contributed during their lifetime with
the project.
I devote some of my spare time to the ReactOS project for two main
reasons:
1. I wish to learn more about operating system development.
2. I wanted to practice my code auditing and security skills on a
project that was of a size that was not too large and mature
(e.g. Linux), while not being so small to be insignificant (various
other home-brew OSs).
Number one is coming along nicely as I'm learning about various topics
such as memory management and how drivers work. Number two is coming
along as well, although much slowly as code auditing a fast moving
project such as this is very time consuming and I have been very busy
lately.
I currently see ReactOS at the same stage of Linux in the mid
nineties. People run it, play with it and contribute to it. The size
of this group of people is not large, but they are usually technically
minded and their number is sufficient for the project to grow and
continue. Development is happening at a fast pace and keeping up can
be time consuming at the moment. Lets not try and loose our drive and
ambition here. You have implemented a fairly significant amount of
the Windows operating system in a relatively short amount of time.
You have contributed code to other projects such as WINE. You have a
large number of applications that can already run on the system. You
have achieved a lot, don't stop now.
I think that ReactOS is at a critical stage in development and once is
becomes a little more stable we will see a large increase in the
number of users beta testing and trying it out. I wish the ReactOS
project to succeed and it is something that I think will occur
eventually.
To all of ReactOS' developers, testers and supporters: You are doing a
great job, don't stop now.
Cheers,
Martin
I hereby resign from the position of Testing Coordinator. Casper,
could you please disable my svn account?
I am leaving for a variety of reasons. First of all, I wish to spend
more of my precious free time with my family. Second, work has become
more demanding of my time. There are many other reasons, including
the way major project issues are handled, and the fact I have not been
able to keep up with the testing and improvements I wished to
implement. This decision has been a long time coming.
It's been great getting to know the ReactOS developers and community,
and have learned a great deal from many of you. I will still stop in
IRC occasionally, and will continue to follow the project.
I think the Testing Coordinator position is a very important position,
and it needs to be filled. I feel that I was able to make a direct
impact on the quality of ReactOS, even though I am not a real
developer. I am willing to provide assistance and information to
anyone who wishes to step up to the position.
KEEP FILING BUGS!
Andrew Munger (WaxDragon)
Hi folks:
I was trying to update mi local mirror and fuond that the SVN server is no
longer the same. Wich is the new Address.
Thanks in advance
Regards
Waldo Alvarez
On 1/16/06, Richard <eek2121(a)comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I think it's time for me to hit up bugzilla, anyways, Firefox setup from
> mozilla.com no longer works, it just dies, and the 'get firefox' link
> results in an access denied in the middle of FF setup.
>
> Every 3rd or 4th boot ROS also does not have a mouse pointer. It may be
> frozen, i can't tell.
>
> Regressions...Regressions...Regressions...
> Richard
> _______________________________________________
> Ros-dev mailing list
> Ros-dev(a)reactos.org
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>
Hi,
many people mailed to me directly.
Sorry, If I didn't answered all of them.
Sorry if I only answer in the evening (EU). I've a day-job and my WAF
doesn't like ReactOS really.
- Hartmut
I think having to debug Alex's latest breakage (bugcheck at the end of 2nd
stage setup) so I can continue debugging one of his earlier breakages (bug
1263) is asking just a bit too much. I'll go do something non-ReactOS
related for the next couple of days.
GvG
I think it's time for me to hit up bugzilla, anyways, Firefox setup from
mozilla.com no longer works, it just dies, and the 'get firefox' link
results in an access denied in the middle of FF setup.
Every 3rd or 4th boot ROS also does not have a mouse pointer. It may be
frozen, i can't tell.
Regressions...Regressions...Regressions...
Richard
When you click 'view GPL' for second stage setup, a license agreement
comes up for something called Gnomovision. This should not be the
case. I would change it myself but i don't have my svn password handy.
Richard
Hi all,
Can anyone see the problem with this picture? Every time I move the window,
it looks like back behind the window, it gets redrawn.
Thanks,
James
Hi,
it seems we have a little bug in KiFastCallEntry. It is initialized a
trap frame on the stack. It is a trap frame without the v86 segment
registers. ESP points to TSS->ESP0 - sizeof(KTRAP_FRAME) + 16. 16 for
the missing v86 segment register. ESP is compared with
KTHREAD->InitialStack - 0x29c. 0x29c is equal to sizeof(FX_SAVE_AREA) +
sizeof(KTRAP_FRAME). If the compare operation fails, it is called
BadStack which results in a v86 invalid opcode exception. To bypass this
bug, there is added a value of 0x10 to TSS->ESP0 in
Ke386InitThreadWithContext. A friend of me has looked to WinXp. He has
found a piece of code which is an exact copy of BadStack and he has
found a piece of code which looks like this:
_KiFastCallEntry:
...
/* Use the thread's stack */
mov ebp, [esi+KTHREAD_INITIAL_STACK]
...
/* Make space for us on the stack */
sub ebp, 0x29C
/* Write the previous mode */
mov byte ptr [esi+KTHREAD_PREVIOUS_MODE], UserMode
/* Sanity check */
cmp ebp, esp
jnz BadStack
...
- Hartmut
