
ReactOS as a second OS in Russian government's software freedom effort - jeditobe
https://www.reactos.org/node/946
======
dschiptsov
Someone should explain to them that open source software without being
actively developed by a global community of high skilled enthusiasts (doing it
for their own use) is doomed to lag, stagnate and die. Even a Linux
distribution will lag and stagnate without active community. So many did. It
just a law of big numbers. Even Solaris forks are effectively dead - who would
write all the drivers for all these new chipsets?

Long time ago Russian military had a brilliant idea to maintain their own
Linux - it was an epic failure. And always will be.

~~~
jeditobe
ReactOS has a plenty of drivers and programs, because the idea of ReactOS is
to be 100% compatible with windows 2003+

~~~
dschiptsov
Any 10gb Ethernets? SAS controllers? Latest server chipsets? Support of NUMA
architectures?

~~~
rjaco31
If they are binary-compatible with Windows, I guess they can just use the
existing ones.

~~~
cwyers
Is that legal? Are Windows drivers distributed in such a way that they can be
used with non-Windows operating systems?

~~~
sp332
Aren't the drivers for SAS controllers and other server hardware usually
written by 3rd parties?

~~~
cwyers
It's possible, I think, that there's some Windows driver SDK code used by most
drivers that has conditions on it.

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jarcane
Amoral tech strikes again.

Good luck with that; Russia isn't interested in software freedom, they're just
not interested in something from outside Russia they can't control.

EDIT: A friend informs me that the head of the project is himself Russian, and
already works largely under government funding. So in retrospect, less "amoral
tech nerds take money from wherever they can get it" and more "some Russian
bureaucrats want their own Red Star OS".

~~~
pgeorgi
> Russia isn't interested in software freedom, they're just not interested in
> something from outside Russia they can't control

Which is exactly what the first paragraph states: "are pursuing measures to
rid vendor lock-in of strategically important software"

Why should Russia (or any organization, from 1 person up to nations) prefer
vendor lock-in over something that they can control?

~~~
jarcane
The distinction is whether it's a question of freeing it for everyone's
control, or merely trading foreign control for their own.

Russia doesn't want GNU, they just want a Russian Microsoft that's in Putin's
pocket like everything else.

Take a look at what's happened to VKontakte some time.

~~~
pgeorgi
VKontakte can't be easily forked, while ReactOS is GPL.

Of course the Russian government wants to be able to control their systems,
and any positive effects for others are at best some nice PR.

How does that detract any value from ReactOS (or Linux, which is their "other"
desktop and server OS)?

One of the principles of Open Source (compared to Free Software) is the idea
that people and organizations work in a project where every contributor works
in their self-interest. Why is this suddenly a bad thing?

------
alexi5
Support for the project by Russian Federation state is an important impellent
to release a working package of that open source OS which is with no tight
license. (If we would speak about a tight license - it makes (would make)
useless crap from a project.) And about the criticism to state support : if
there will be no ROS, people will have either to use Windows itself, or
Linux+Wine. Would that limitation be better ? And that is not the first place
- that is the second place for support to a client/server OS project (the
first place was given to some Linux project
[http://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=42406](http://www.opennet.ru/opennews/art.shtml?num=42406)
).

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finnjohnsen2
"Russian government" and "freedom effort" in the same sentence. Screenshot,
print, frame, hang on wall.

~~~
ommunist
Believe it or not, Russia today is very free country with very good life for
an average Joe, comparing to the UK. And ReactOS story is just another proof
of that.

~~~
_yosefk
Erm... your definition of "free" and "good" ought to be fairly unusual to
believe that statement. I think the likelihood of a UK journalist to be
murdered by the UK government is 10000x smaller than the analogous probability
in Russia. As to "very good life" \- while quality is subjective, the
_quantity_ of life the average Joe is expected to have (aka life expectancy)
is certainly less than it is in the UK.

And to reply to a sister comment - you don't have to be gay to run into
various trouble you wouldn't expect to run into in the West, though being one
will likely make matters worse.

~~~
Demiurge
You'r belief on the likelihood probability is not factual, it's based on
claims of a side in geopolitical confrontation, the one you choose to believe,
because that's where you live.

It is certainly true that standard of living is lower in Russia, but is better
than many other countries you consider "free".

~~~
_yosefk
Even though it's beside the point, I personally was born in Russia. A lot of
Russian journalists opposing the government were murdered, for instance:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Politkovskaya)

When you demand "facts", do you demand definite proof that the government did
it (a bloody hard thing to obtain in the case of a murdering government), or
are you claiming that the UK murders a similar amount of journalists?

As to "countries that I consider free" \- I don't know where you get insight
into my thinking; I was talking specifically about the UK which the
grandparent brought up.

I have to admit that I'm sick and tired of relativism brought to a point where
black and white are supposed to be indistinguishable. Seriously, who'd you
rather fuck with, the Putin government or the current UK government? I think
we all know the answer. Why are people wishing to sound "objective" so eager
to ignore the obvious?

~~~
vetinari
He probably meat that "unclear murders" do happen in UK and elsewhere too. See
for example:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_%28weapons_expert%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Kelly_%28weapons_expert%29)

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valgog
Instead of stopping occupation of 3 neighbour nation territories and
supporting war machine, they are "freeing" the software.

Of cause it is a window of opportunity for the software integrators. But it is
bloody money they are getting.

(Did not want to be political, but it is a political news article)

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andrewshatnyy
This is just another money laundering scheme for Russian Officials. It's the
same thing as GLONAS or Russian iPhone alternative. It will take long time,
ton of resources and will not work.

~~~
baldfat
ReactOS has been in alpha for 17 years! Don't see how this is a money
laundering scheme. Heck they just did a indiegogo campaign.

~~~
andrewshatnyy
Now when Минсвязи (Ministry of Communications) of Russia is interested it is a
scheme.

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sudioStudio64
I have a feeling that a clone of windows 2000 is going to have some hilari-bad
security bugs...

~~~
jeditobe
Actually, at the current moment ReactOS is clone of Windows 2003, not the
2000. That is the big difference!

~~~
sudioStudio64
I know this position isn't popular, but I don't think that will help. They are
reverse engineering a really complicated system.

Do you think that they have the same kinds of controls that it took MS
literally a decade and millions of to dollars develop?...Controls that that
were expensive in time and money that then only improved their development to
the extent that it has? (far, far from perfect.)

Maybe...and this is a big maybe...there is a enough of a difference between
react and windows that normal windows bugs won't be surfaced. I'm curios as to
whether they support NX, ASLR, or 64 bit? Even if they don't copy the system
bug for bug they may be trivially exploitable just because they don't have the
resources to harden it.

