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@freenet.de Sent: Friday, October 31, 2008 11:53 AM To: "ReactOS Development List" ros-dev@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:
Maya Posch wrote:
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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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. _______________________________________________ Ros-dev mailing list Ros-dev@reactos.org http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev