The WRK and what it means for ReactOS

[Alex Ionescu]

Hi,

Later this spring, Dave Probert's project will finally be complete with 
the realease of the WRK to academia, which means that almost any student 
such as I, Brandon, Filip, etc will have access to it. What is the WRK?

The WRK (Windows Research Kernel) is Microsoft's answer to Linux/BSD 
source code used in classes. It is a special version of the NT Kernel 
designed to be used with the CRK (Windows NT Curriculum Kit) based on 
Windows Internals 4th Edition. It is a collection of about half a 
million lines of kernel code, including almost all of the process 
manager, object manager, thread scheduler, and other components 
discussed in the book. The PnP Manager, Power Subsystem, Kernel Debugger 
however are missing, as well as other specific code. This code is 
located in static libraries which are linked in at the end to create a 
complete kernel.

What of the license? It is the reason why the WRK is so exciting and 
it's taken so long to come out (thank the lawyers). The license allows 
viewing, modifying and *creating derived work*, as long as any changes 
are also sent back to MS and that copyright is not misattributed. 
Additionnally, the license explicitly permits the creation of books or 
other reference material, including the presense of code snippets to 
better explain something, as well as sharing information in community 
forums. All this is allowed for any non-commercial or educational use, 
including personal research. The WRK also ships with Virtual PC, the 
build environment (similar to how we use QEMU/Dazzle for TinyKRNL) and 
full documentation for all the Native APIs.

With such a wonderful thing at our disposal, how will this impact the 
kernel audit (postively)? What decisions do we take regarding the WRK? 
Do we use it? We can either use it entirely (ReactOS is, IIRC, an 
non-commercial research project, unless you still want to "vanquish the 
evil MS and sell millions"), but that would mean attributing copyright 
to Microsoft which many here would puke at. Alternatively, it can be 
used as pure documentation, which gives us all the freedom in the world.

Or, we can be our true anti-MS/MS-bashing arrogants and call the WRK a 
heresy that should never be approached or used.

Best regards,
Alex Ionescu

[David Johnson]

Use it in it's entirety. This would speed up the entire audit project. Also,
it would make a lot of problems go away. Maybe we can have a 0.30 ROS
distribution. I don't care if a tag line of: WRK copyright (R) 2006
Microsoft Corp.

I do not care.
I want to see a PowerPC ReactOS version. I am working on a design for a
Mini-ITX form factor PowerPC G4 1Ghz motherboard to run ROS.

On 3/20/06, Alex Ionescu [e-mail] wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Later this spring, Dave Probert's project will finally be complete with
> the realease of the WRK to academia, which means that almost any student
> such as I, Brandon, Filip, etc will have access to it. What is the WRK?
>
> The WRK (Windows Research Kernel) is Microsoft's answer to Linux/BSD
> source code used in classes. It is a special version of the NT Kernel
> designed to be used with the CRK (Windows NT Curriculum Kit) based on
> Windows Internals 4th Edition. It is a collection of about half a
> million lines of kernel code, including almost all of the process
> manager, object manager, thread scheduler, and other components
> discussed in the book. The PnP Manager, Power Subsystem, Kernel Debugger
> however are missing, as well as other specific code. This code is
> located in static libraries which are linked in at the end to create a
> complete kernel.
>
> What of the license? It is the reason why the WRK is so exciting and
> it's taken so long to come out (thank the lawyers). The license allows
> viewing, modifying and *creating derived work*, as long as any changes
> are also sent back to MS and that copyright is not misattributed.
> Additionnally, the license explicitly permits the creation of books or
> other reference material, including the presense of code snippets to
> better explain something, as well as sharing information in community
> forums. All this is allowed for any non-commercial or educational use,
> including personal research. The WRK also ships with Virtual PC, the
> build environment (similar to how we use QEMU/Dazzle for TinyKRNL) and
> full documentation for all the Native APIs.
>
> With such a wonderful thing at our disposal, how will this impact the
> kernel audit (postively)? What decisions do we take regarding the WRK?
> Do we use it? We can either use it entirely (ReactOS is, IIRC, an
> non-commercial research project, unless you still want to "vanquish the
> evil MS and sell millions"), but that would mean attributing copyright
> to Microsoft which many here would puke at. Alternatively, it can be
> used as pure documentation, which gives us all the freedom in the world.
>
> Or, we can be our true anti-MS/MS-bashing arrogants and call the WRK a
> heresy that should never be approached or used.
>
> Best regards,
> Alex Ionescu
> _______________________________________________
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

--
Dave Johnson
www.davefilms.us DaveFILMS(r)
Voice Talent
Writer, Producer, Director
Independent Audio Theater Producer
----------------------------------------------------------
Tired of a proprietary Windows on your computer ?
Use free ReactOS instead ( http://www.reactos.org )

[ShadowFlare]

On 3/20/06, Alex Ionescu [e-mail] wrote:
> All this is allowed for any non-commercial or educational use,
> including personal research.

Because of that part of the license, it is likely that the code
couldn't be directly used in ReactOS.  In my opinion, that part sounds
incompatible with the GPL, since you ARE allowed to sell things that
are licensed under the GPL.  This means that using it as documentation
is the only possible use of it for furthering the development of
ReactOS.

-ShadowFlare

[Alex Ionescu]

ShadowFlare wrote:
> On 3/20/06, Alex Ionescu [e-mail] wrote:
> > All this is allowed for any non-commercial or educational use,
> > including personal research.
>
> Because of that part of the license, it is likely that the code
> couldn't be directly used in ReactOS.  In my opinion, that part sounds
> incompatible with the GPL, since you ARE allowed to sell things that
> are licensed under the GPL.

I clearly stated using this code would make those parts non-GPL compatible.
> This means that using it as documentation
> is the only possible use of it for furthering the development of
> ReactOS.

I suggested that as well.
> -ShadowFlare

Best regards,
Alex Ionescu

[Klemens Friedl]

Use the documentation of WRK (it is maily Windows Internals 4th edtion
+ additional chapters, afaik). I think we shouldn't use use their WRK
for any other purpose then as a documentation (and only if it is okay
with the GPL and the MS Eula/license/etc.).

All other "alternatives" doesn't make sense to me.

"ReactOS is aiming to run your applications and use your hardware, a
FOSS operating system for everyone!"

Read more on http://www.reactos.org ;-)

[Alex Ionescu]

Klemens Friedl wrote:
> Use the documentation of WRK (it is maily Windows Internals 4th edtion
> additional chapters, afaik). I think we shouldn't use use their WRK
>
> for any other purpose then as a documentation (and only if it is okay
> with the GPL and the MS Eula/license/etc.).

You're confusing the CRK with the WRK. The WRK's "documentation" are the 
half a million lines of kernel source code and the native api docs.

Best regards,
Alex Ionescu

[Wesley Parish]

Quoting ShadowFlare [e-mail]:
> On 3/20/06, Alex Ionescu [e-mail] wrote:
> > All this is allowed for any non-commercial or educational use, 
> > including personal research.
>
> Because of that part of the license, it is likely that the code 
> couldn't be directly used in ReactOS. In my opinion, that part sounds 
> incompatible with the GPL, since you ARE allowed to sell things that 
> are licensed under the GPL. This means that using it as documentation 
> is the only possible use of it for furthering the development of 
> ReactOS.

That's my understanding as well.  I - for one of my own projects - wanted to 
make use of the Mosaic source tree; its license provisions are much the same - 
free for non-commercial and research purposes, but not for anything vaguely 
commercial.  I'm still waiting to hear back from them about changing the terms 
to more-GPL-compatible ones.  RMS made it obvious that the GPL wouldn't 
prevent commercial use, and Microsoft does know that at the very least - their 
complaints about the GPL are more to do with it not being the BSDL, open to 
all takers even if they don't want to return anything to the community.

Use the WRK as documentation.

For myself, I have no complaints about Microsoft adding to the FOSS source 
code base; it's other things I worry about. ;)

Wesley Parish
> -ShadowFlare
>
> Ros-dev mailing list 
> [e-mail] 
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

"Sharpened hands are happy hands. 
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands"  
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge

"I me.  Shape middled me.  I would come out into hot!"  
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the  
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press

[Jonathan Wilson]

If the licence meets the OSI open source definition AND we can use it 
alongside all our exising non-kernel code (either because its GPL 
compatible or because we can make an exception for it), we should use it.
Otherwise we shouldnt use it in ROS. That doesnt mean we shouldnt use it as 
a reference source for the thorny internals bits without actually using 
code from it.

I pesonally am curious to see just what code MS gives out and which bits it 
keeps secret.

[Wesley Parish]

Quoting Alex Ionescu [e-mail]:
> Hi,
>
> Later this spring, Dave Probert's project will finally be complete with
>
> the realease of the WRK to academia, which means that almost any student
>
> such as I, Brandon, Filip, etc will have access to it. What is the WRK?

<snip>
> With such a wonderful thing at our disposal, how will this impact the  
> kernel audit (postively)? What decisions do we take regarding the WRK?

Well, it gives us a legal avenue to check the Reactos source tree against a 
comparable MS WinNT source tree, much in the same way the CSRG used the AT&T 
source tree to make the BSD source tree, making sure it did the same thing, 
only better.
> Do we use it? We can either use it entirely (ReactOS is, IIRC, an  
> non-commercial research project, unless you still want to "vanquish the
>
> evil MS and sell millions"), but that would mean attributing copyright  
> to Microsoft which many here would puke at. Alternatively, it can be

Let Microsoft get copyright attribution when they actively contribute to 
Reactos, not before.
> used as pure documentation, which gives us all the freedom in the 
> world.

We've got freedom from Microsoft now; we shouldn't give it up.
> Or, we can be our true anti-MS/MS-bashing arrogants and call the WRK a  
> heresy that should never be approached or used.

Might be interesting to compare it to the MS WinCE Academic Shared Source 
source tree, find out how the two branches of the same product do the same 
thing.

Wesley Parish
> Best regards, 
> Alex Ionescu 
> _______________________________________________ 
> Ros-dev mailing list 
> [e-mail] 
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

"Sharpened hands are happy hands. 
"Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands"  
- A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge

"I me.  Shape middled me.  I would come out into hot!"  
I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the  
other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press

[David Johnson]

Use it!! Nuf said.

On 3/21/06, Wesley Parish [e-mail] wrote:
> Quoting Alex Ionescu [e-mail]:
> > Hi,
> >
> > Later this spring, Dave Probert's project will finally be complete with
> >
> > the realease of the WRK to academia, which means that almost any student
> >
> > such as I, Brandon, Filip, etc will have access to it. What is the WRK?
>
> <snip>
> >
> > With such a wonderful thing at our disposal, how will this impact the
> > kernel audit (postively)? What decisions do we take regarding the WRK?
>
> Well, it gives us a legal avenue to check the Reactos source tree against
> a
> comparable MS WinNT source tree, much in the same way the CSRG used the
> AT&T
> source tree to make the BSD source tree, making sure it did the same
> thing,
> only better.
> > Do we use it? We can either use it entirely (ReactOS is, IIRC, an
> > non-commercial research project, unless you still want to "vanquish the
> >
> > evil MS and sell millions"), but that would mean attributing copyright
> > to Microsoft which many here would puke at. Alternatively, it can be
>
> Let Microsoft get copyright attribution when they actively contribute to
> Reactos, not before.
> > used as pure documentation, which gives us all the freedom in the
> > world.
>
> We've got freedom from Microsoft now; we shouldn't give it up.
> > Or, we can be our true anti-MS/MS-bashing arrogants and call the WRK a
> > heresy that should never be approached or used.
>
> Might be interesting to compare it to the MS WinCE Academic Shared Source
> source tree, find out how the two branches of the same product do the same
> thing.
>
> Wesley Parish
> > Best regards,
> > Alex Ionescu
> > _______________________________________________
> > Ros-dev mailing list
> > [e-mail]
> > http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev
>
> "Sharpened hands are happy hands.
> "Brim the tinfall with mirthful bands"
> A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge
>
> "I me.  Shape middled me.  I would come out into hot!"
> I from the spicy that day was overcasked mockingly - it's a symbol of the
> other horizon. - emacs : meta x dissociated-press
> _______________________________________________
> Ros-dev mailing list
> [e-mail]
> http://www.reactos.org/mailman/listinfo/ros-dev

--
Dave Johnson
www.davefilms.us DaveFILMS(r)
Voice Talent
Writer, Producer, Director
Independent Audio Theater Producer
----------------------------------------------------------
Tired of a proprietary Windows on your computer ?
Use free ReactOS instead ( http://www.reactos.org )