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Russian President Interested In Funding ReactOS 186

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the reactions-are-mixed dept.
An anonymous reader writes "When Russian President Dmitri Medvedev recently visited a high school where ReactOS developer Marat Karatov happens to study, Karatov took the opportunity to present the open-source Windows-a-like to the President, and got a rather more enthusiastic reaction than might be expected — the President found the project interesting, and would consider funding it." Be forewarned that the BBC article takes a few statements by the developers about boot time and compatibility out of context.
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Russian President Interested In Funding ReactOS More

Russian President Interested In Funding ReactOS

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  • Hey, big things have started this way (Score:5, Interesting)

    by elrous0 ( 869638 ) * on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @11:05AM (#37398970)

    The entire Soviet space program (and, arguably, the American one too) supposedly came out of a brief meeting about ICBM's in 1953 where Sergei Korolev [wikipedia.org] pitched his bigger idea for a space program to Khrushchev.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by eexaa ( 1252378 )

      I wanted to write you a reply from inside ReactOS, but it bluescreened in tcpip.sys.

      Nevermind, ReactOS aplha is still roughly as stable as final-released windows. Hope they will be able to finish this someday, looks promising.

  • 3... 2... 1... (Score:3)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @11:07AM (#37399002) Journal

    Be forewarned that the BBC article takes a few statements by the developers about boot time and compatibility out of context.

    In other words, prepare to get your nurd rage on.

    • Be forewarned that the BBC article takes a few statements by the developers about boot time and compatibility out of context.

      In other words, prepare to get your nurd rage on.

      I've already selected my angry font. Now to send them a strongly worded email!

    • Be forewarned that the BBC article takes a few statements by the developers about boot time and compatibility out of context.

      No WAY!!! The BBC subtly miswording news items to promote a particular agenda? Impossible! </sarcasm>

  • Recapturing the glory days? (Score:3)

    by fuzzyfuzzyfungus ( 1223518 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @11:10AM (#37399032) Journal
    Luckily, Russia has a good deal of experience with producing largely functional clones of western computer systems, so ReactOS could be a perfect fit for them...
    • Well, first they start switching to Linux, then they want to fund ReactOS. I think I'm starting to cheer for the Russians. Meanwhile, the US and UK want to police your internet so you don't download stuff.
      • Well, I think ROS is a good idea and if crazy-assed Medvedev wants to fund it that's a good thing. They're starved for developers, so this can cold-boot the project.

        • It was a good idea in the past, but at this point they're at least 3 versions of Windows behind all but ensuring that they're not going to catch up any time soon.

          Ultimately people that are willing to try it would probably be willing to try Linux + Wine.

          • It was a good idea in the past, but at this point they're at least 3 versions of Windows behind all but ensuring that they're not going to catch up any time soon.

            If that was as big an issue as you think it is, I wouldn't be forced to write code that runs properly in IE6 so cubicle drones with decade old machines can access it.

          • at this point they're at least 3 versions of Windows behind

            Not saying your point is invalid but I just want to point out, that's exactly where a lot of IT people want an OS to be. Up-to-date on the core stuff, willing to run a Windows XPish environment. ReactOS has long been identified as being the biggest risk to Microsoft's business. If an OS came to market that said, "Hey, here's an OS that is exactly like XP but is up-to-date and open source." I know for sure that my IT department would be all over it and I know quite a few others that would drop MS like it

      • And I'm sure the Russians want to get in on the ground floor of an OS for purely altruistic reasons, and not in order to impose THEIR will on it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kozz ( 7764 )

      Yep... consider that the ReactOS roadmap shows that the earliest releases were in 1998. 13 years later, the project is now version 0.3.13 in ALPHA. By the time ReactOS is out of beta, half the world will be using Windows 14. Now I'm not saying that it's not a worthy goal, but if their project doesn't get some muscle behind it (like Russian dollars), I don't really see it being more than a tool for developers to learn, rather than a project for consumers to actually use as an OS.

  • Let the patent war begin (Score:3)

    by hAckz0r ( 989977 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @11:13AM (#37399080)
    So far Microsoft has ignored ReactOS, and they have kept plodding along gut have been no threat to the Monopoly. If ReactOS gets enough publicity, and funding, then that equation changes drastically. You can bet that Microsoft will have their lawyers dusting off the patent archives to see what can be used to hold them back from being a serious Windows-like competitor. Only in Russia, they don't care about the US legal system except for any International agreements that they can not ignore. It will be interesting to watch, and I'm hoping the best for the ReactOS folks.

    • So far Microsoft has ignored ReactOS,

      And so has everyone else, including Vladimir Putin, the real leader of Russia, since it works no better than Wine. Is it not based on Wine?

    • Only in Russia, they don't care about the US legal system except for any International agreements that they can not ignore.

      You seriously think Russia can't ignore international agreements if they want to? US does all the time, Russia can too. Even if just to show off to USA. What will the rest of the world do if Russia ignores the agreements? Stops buying energy from them? People in Europe better get used to having no electricity, and prepare for a cold winter.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

      This is really just so dull. Okay we now have Linux, BSD filling in the free Unix and Unix like OS space. We have OS/X as the consumer Unix with a really nice UI+API added, and now we have Windows and maybe a Windows clone getting some traction.
      We are down to Unix and Windows still in the Os space.
      This just so dull. Why not support something different or new. Maybe an OS build on VMS with a good UI and graphics layer? Why not the haiku?
      Why not something new instead of let's make a clone of X.

      • It take a lot of time and work to develop a mature OS, so why write the whole thing from scratch unless you need to? Even if you want to create a new OS, it probably makes sense to scavenge what you can from existing open source projects.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by LWATCDR ( 28044 )

          Yes it does but we have mature OSs that run current software. I have no problem with Linux or BSD but please not yet another Unix or Windows.
          As someone pointed out drivers are an issue and will be for a long time. They still are for Linux for that matter.
          Plan 9 is interesting as in Menuet but that is in Asm so it will be so none portable. Even Minix is interesting because of it's goal of self healing.
          As to "Its hard to write a mature OS" well that didn't stop Linux did it?

          Let's seem some real risk taking a

      • There are OS projects that are not clones of existing systems, but they never gain any traction because the applications are just not there. The whole point of ReactOS is to come up with something that will allow the use of a big chunk of existing applications.

        The only chance of getting a new OS off the ground is to start it on a new type of platform, and even that is dicey at best. WebOS hasn't exactly taken off.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Khyber ( 864651 )

        And yet you ignore MenuetOS, which has the potential to make all of the above OSes look like pure garbage.

        • Proprietary real-time OS supporting only low-level assembler programming on only the x86 and x86-64, and closed source license for 64 bit??!!

          You're funny.

          • Re:Let the patent war begin (Score:4, Informative)

            by Khyber ( 864651 ) <techkitsune@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @12:52PM (#37400394) Homepage Journal

            And yet it does every thing I've asked it to do. I'm even rocking some Quake, and I can post on slashdot, I can boot instantly, I have no issues with multiple programs open, and it just so happens to be the interface OS for my research station at home.

            Proprietary, but its FREE and it comes with tools to let you do things.

            Is nobody a child at heart any longer? What happened to that drive to tinker?

            • Free? Not if you want to do things with that which you produce with your tinkerings, you'll have to pay money. And more importantly, you don't have freedom to do things with your tinkerings, you can't start a business or use at work or even use for a contract with that license.

              I can tinker just fine on Linux and BSD, and have a thousand times the tools to do so, and have freedoms with what I make.

              Menuet would be great for making high-end controller interface for machining, facility control, laborat

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by MSG ( 12810 )

              Is nobody a child at heart any longer? What happened to that drive to tinker?

              Many people here want to tinker with the OS, too. It needs to be Free Software.

      • Why not something new instead of let's make a clone of X.

        Because drivers.

        Hardware manufacturers only release drivers for Windows, Mac, and usually Linux, and they are very rarely open source. Applications are not the problem, especially if it's meant as a desktop UI, as long as you provide a C compiler. But you have to clone one of the major OS's driver interfaces if you want it to work on a wide range of hardware.

        As someone pointed out above, Android and iOS did not have this problem, because they were targeted on specific and controlled hardware. As a desktop O

      • Plan 9 is available if you want to develop for that; it's even used commercially

        VMS has a GUI, DECwindows Motif on top of OpenVMS's X11. most of your Unix/Linux stuff can run on OpenVMS anyway thanks to GCC running there and the POSIX libraries

  • Why not follow China's example and develop your own official Linux distro?

  • Interesting news, really (Score:3)

    by Rennt ( 582550 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @11:20AM (#37399196)
    But it has got to be one of the worst articles ever posted to /.

  • And yet another summary gone wrong. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Pi1grim ( 1956208 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @11:24AM (#37399248)

    Really? Enthusiastic? President said that it is a very good and promising thing (considering a hight school student told him they were developing a free OS that could replace windows and keep old windows programs working) and made a joke that he does not have a million dollars in his pocket, but "he will think about it". You all know what this means/

  • Governments funding of projects, any projects, is mis-allocation of resources. If the project in question has any reason to exist, then there would be private funding for it, private lending, private interest.

    Government can push agenda [go.com], but they can't make it work [usatoday.com] nor should they try [washingtonpost.com].

    Either there is a reason for something to exist in the market or there isn't. Government commanding reasons does not work.

    • Then I hope you can afford to pay the privately-funded police force the required protection money for your house before some free-enterprisers come to expand their breaking-and-entering business.

  • But does it run... (Score:3)

    by TeknoHog ( 164938 ) on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @11:47AM (#37399614) Homepage Journal
    all the viruses, worms and other malware?

  • Putin left the back door open, and Dmitri got out again.

  • In Soviet Russia, operating system funds YOU. For once it's actually true, since the operating system was communism...
    • To put it in terms you'd understand: girls born in Russia that isn't soviet are of legal now. So I am gonna have to ask, "what's a Soviet Russia?"

      • "what's a Soviet Russia?"

        It is, or was the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, I guess. Not that it matters.

  • Hmmm (Score:2)

    by DrXym ( 126579 )
    I think ReactOS is in the same boat as WINE and Mono, forever chasing Microsoft, wherever they lead them. And in many cases the open source effort simply CANNOT provide 100% emulation because parts of Windows are so complex and esoteric it would be impossible to implement them perfectly. Internet Explorer and .NET would be two major examples of functionality which will never be emulated perfectly which impacts the kinds of software ReactOS can run.

    I also think that the article hugely embellishes where Rea

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Not being able to run Internet Explorer is a feature.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        I couldn't care less about running IE standalone, but some orgs might for their home grown tools. I'd also point out that IE is embedded in a substantial number of apps. Those apps expect IE to behave the way it's supposed to behave from the programming API to the content it renders.
    • Well I think catching XP is a possible goal (since xp is pretty much dead a.k.a static now.), but i agree that they'll never catch up to the latest version.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by spasm ( 79260 )

      At the moment I have an XP virtual machine in Virtualbox which I use about every two or three months for those rare occasions when I need to run some odd piece of windows-only software which doesn't work in WINE (or doesn't work without more tweaking than I have time to waste on it). To have this virtual image, I either need to pay the $100+ that a legal copy costs these days, which is a bit steep for something I rarely use, or use a pirated copy, which I also don't want to do. If ReactOS works with those

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        I think you have a point about virtualization. The OS doesn't have to worry about supporting a gazillion random consumer devices, just the ones the VM emulates. It's a lot less work and I expect there are practical applications where if the VM goes titsup you can just spawn another one. It might be useful in server farms and the like where it doesn't too much if the GUI is crap and primitive so long as it serves connections. But I think it has a way to go to be useful for that either.

    • .NET would be two major examples of functionality which will never be emulated perfectly

      you mean they can't add Mono to it, or that Mono doesn't implement 100% functionality or .NET (I'm sure the Mono guys said it did) :)

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        Try installing Mono on Windows and running some random .NET application. If you're lucky it works. If you're not lucky it falls over in a big heap at some random location. That's on top of a genuine Windows. Real world .NET apps often make bad assumptions about their runtime, make calls to ActiveX controls (e.g. IE), native C calls, interact with various MS technologies and all the rest. There are too many possible ways for things to break. Put it on top of WINE / ReactOS and it's going to be even worse.

        I

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )

      If ReactOS becomes big enough however, then third party developers will target it...
      If you write code for ReactOS, then compatibility with windows comes too... If you target windows then compatibility with reactos may require extra work. If Reactos has a significant enough share of the user base, then it makes sense to target it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by DrXym ( 126579 )
        That's a big if. As I said I think it deserves funding (and WINE), but look how long these projects have been going on. Even today it's still a pleasant surprise when WINE actually runs a complex app without doing something obviously wrong.

  • The last time I checked out ReactOS, they had a nice software download app. A bit like you would update a linux system with additional software.

    Looks like a good idea to me.

  • Immediately after noticing it was a tech article written by a woman.

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