31 Oct
2008
31 Oct
'08
1:39 p.m.
If reactos is (and will probably be for a long time) a hobby OS is a
consequence of our all-or-nothing strategy. ReactOS is trying to clone
Windows as a whole inset of different OS based on the NT design like stated
on the homepage. IMHO it's plain wrong because it's a very ambitious goal
and it's even naive to think that 10+ part time developers can deliver a
serious os to compete against the resources Microsoft or even Linux has. At
current progress when we hit 1.0 will be too late for reactos , that simple.
Do we need directx at this point? tenths of useless stubbed dlls ? 3
undergoing architecture ports? You name it. Don't take me wrong that's
technically amazing but not an smart strategy if we don't want to become an
eternal promising project in alpha state and nothing more.
As a consequence of that ReactOS codebase has grown out of control. Any
developer can pick any area of his interest, start working on it and then
suddenly stop and start working on another thing. The current situation is
that we have a monster with multiple legs but very few finished parts. IMHO
we should better concentrate on a few key areas only (and I mean really few)
and work all together in that direction to deliver something usable now , in
a year timeframe , even if it's just a basic (but stable) kernel to run
firefox on. I think it's better to give reactos a real world use now than
deliver an NT5 clone in 5 years being optimistic.
A few possible solutions to discuss:
- Redefine our target. We have a very end-user oriented website when no
users actually exist! currently we need developers not yet more fun, nice ,
but non productive users . If you take a brief look at our webpage the first
impression is "wow! a free windows clone than runs mozilla and OpenOffice!!"
but .. it's that what we have? I don't think so.. How many times has someone
asked in the channel how to run office 2007 or complaining about ReactOS not
installing into his brand new notebook . IMHO we should turn into a more
developer oriented community . Inset of promoting reactos as windows killer
we may promote it as learning platform for IT students. As a great
opportunity to study an alternative non unix microkernel OS design .It will
lead into more passionate productive people joining the project. Don't
promote it in international user oriented events but on universities and
collages, we can give speeches on our respective collages and promote it
among teachers as learning vehicle.
- Redefine short term goals and turn reactos into something usable right
now. Could be reactos interesting for the embedded market as a headless ,
well known Win32 API, tcp/ip enabled OS running on cheap x86 based hardware?
- Defining a serious, closed , roadmap with realistic dates that doesn't
sound like joke, and enforce it.
Regards
/Marc
--------------------------------------------------
From: "Daniel Reimer" <reimer.daniel(a)freenet.de>
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 11:53 AM
To: "ReactOS Development List" <ros-dev(a)reactos.org>
Subject: Re: [ros-dev] Regarding documentation and attracting new developers
Maya Posch wrote:
I guess this is why ReactOS is going nowhere
fast. If nobody is willing
to see it as a viable project, even for commercialization, then it's not
so surprising that no deadlines are ever met and attention from the
public for what could be something even bigger than Linux (at least on
the desktop) is at around the level of OSS OSs which are little more
than hobby projects. Is ReactOS a hobby project? What is its goal? Is it
intended to grow into something companies would use and where the
ReactOS Foundation could provide paid support for? I don't see this
happening right now.
For the time being I'll suspend most of my work on ReactOS. I'll only
continue work on the installer project, partially because I can't let
down the guys who work for me and partially because it's a generic
enough installer that it could work for any other OS.
Maya
gedmurphy wrote:
Problem is that most people have a real life too and need to pay the
bills at the month's end from something. As Ged said, this is a spare
time and hobby project right now and it will be as long as you can't pay
your food and bills from working on it. ROS is a really great project
and I will never leave it for sure, like most here won't , but noone
wants to become unemployed to be able to code way more on it. We already
had some talk with commercial supporters who might fix this in the
future and make paid devs possible, but sadly not yet.
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Maya Posch wrote:
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I don't know how the Windows internals work
or even
look like, this is my first time I'm working with them.
Then you're falling at the first hurdle. You can't work on ReactOS,
especially at the level you are, without knowing Windows Internals
religiously.
You need to take a step back, put some time into learning the
architecture
_and_ how to program for the architecture. Only when you know this will
you
be in a position to write good code.
Stefan is an excellent example of this in practice. He came to ReactOS
knowing little about NT. He put in the time and effort and learned the
architecture (very quickly). He's now in a position read and understand
the
kernel and is making some valuable contributions.
If those people do not want to write
documentation, fine, have someone
else write the specifications and feed them those. Don't put them in
charge as they clearly aren't thinking about the wellbeing of the
project as a whole but only their small island.
Who? Who is going to write this documentation? Can you recommend anyone?
Anyone with the knowledge to write it is more interested in coding.
Are you volunteering, or do you want to pay someone to do it?
Impractical, insufficient and cop-out are words
that come to mind.
Sorry if I sound harsh, but this is among one of my many pet peeves ^_^
I've said it before and I'll say it again, even though people _hate_
this
answer...
A good programmer, with knowledge of NT doesn't need text.
The design is already established, read Windows Internals 4th. The code
is
the fine, granular documentation.
As much as this may annoy you, there is absolutely no way to change this
at
the moment.
This is open source....
It's not a great business model, but it's fun :)
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