MS Console/Terminal stuff (was: "RE: Ros-dev Digest, Vol 177, Issue 2")

[Hermès BÉLUSCA-MAÏTO]

Hi,

I’m trying to answer point by point.

1.       Their license is MIT. At least it allows us to borrow ideas from their code for how to implement stuff in ReactOS’ console/terminal. (I suppose that if one wants to copy entire chunks of code, that I wouldn’t do it, I’m not sure how the licensing of the original ReactOS console GPL code would have to change. But “I’m not a lawyer”. Anyway, copy-pasting stuff is never a good idea.)

2.       Yes but again you don’t need to care. It allows us to remain “original” in our way of implementing the things. What’s now “documented” however, is the interface between condrv and conhost (and to kernel32 if my quick reading of the shared headers is correct). This is sufficient. Then the internal implementation one can write for ReactOS is left free, this allows one to have original code and note a dull copy-paste.

3.       ReactOS doesn’t use C++ in the console, and won’t use ”WinRT” any time soon in its entire code-base. So forget about any direct import of the MS console code into ROS.

Regards,

Hermès

De : Ros-dev [mailto:[e-mail]] De la part de Biswapriyo Nath
Envoyé : mardi 7 mai 2019 20:42
À : [e-mail]
Objet : Re: [ros-dev] Ros-dev Digest, Vol 177, Issue 2

Some queries though:

1. There are many restrictions on how the code can be used. Are developers allowed to import the idea to ReactOS? Also with a different license.

2. The half of the codebase of console subsystem implemented in KernelBase and Kernel32. Those are not open source. Also the main magic happens in ConDrv driver.

3. The project has C++/WinRT code. Does ReactOS have that section?

Thank you <3

[Colin Finck]

> 1.       Their license is MIT. At least it allows us to borrow ideas
> from their code for how to implement stuff in ReactOS’ console/terminal.
> (I suppose that if one wants to copy entire chunks of code, that I
> wouldn’t do it, I’m not sure how the licensing of the original ReactOS
> console GPL code would have to change.

We've been over-cautious with legal matters long enough, so let's get
this one straight: MIT is fully compatible with any version of GPL.
This is confirmed by GNU:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#X11License

You can take as much code as you want from the Terminal repo and
integrate it into our GPL code, as long as you add the copyright and
permission notice from
https://github.com/microsoft/Terminal/blob/master/LICENSE to the file
header. Our work will stay GPL while those imported portions may also be
used under the terms of the MIT license.
> 3.       ReactOS doesn’t use C++ in the console

We've also been over-cautious with C++ in the past. But as we're moving
to GCC 8+ and MSVC 2015+, it's also time to reconsider our usage of C++.

Honestly, our project goal is hard enough as is! Let's not make it
harder by clinging to C and expecting everyone to happily spend time on
buffer sizes and pointer arithmetics when an STL container would do the
same job.
Since C++11, you finally have guarantees about STL buffers being
contiguous, so std::string and std::vector have become universal
alternatives to char[] and C arrays.
On that note, has anyone tried replacing our STLport with a newer STL
(such as LLVM's libc++) that is maintained and supports newer C++ features?

Cheers,

Colin

[Erkin Alp Güney]

GNU is not a person, it cannot confirm. FSF does.

8 May 2019 Çar 11:16 tarihinde Colin Finck [e-mail] şunu yazdı:
> We've been over-cautious with legal matters long enough, so let's get
> this one straight: MIT is fully compatible with any version of GPL.
> This is confirmed by GNU:
> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.en.html#X11License
>
> Cheers,
>
> Colin
>
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev