ReactOS Presented To Russian President Putin 155
An anonymous reader writes "While President Putin was touring the area of Seliger Youth Forum, Marat Karatov demonstrated what can only be described as a fair amount of daring when he called out to the president and requested to present ReactOS to him. Putin agreed, and the project has now presented ReactOS to two successive Russian presidents. Putin responded to the presentation by stating he would think on it."
Re:*Slaps head* (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would anyone ever want to clone Windows?
Oh I don't know. How about using a lot of hardware that doesn't do jack shit under linux ?
Especially audio hardware. Not your consumer oriented crap obviously. And video editor suits etc...
And frankly having a windows clone is as good as having a dos clone.
We can replay all those great pc games (that newer generations don't even know because all they get nowadays are shitty console ports of shitty games).
More choice is good, and even better the day my windows programs will not be taken hostage by Microsoft.
So go ReactOS developers, make the dream come true.
Re:2000km on a bus!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really. Russia is a very, very big country.
Hell, I've seen some bus trips across Turkey into neighbouring countries that'll do 1600km in roughly two days or so. These would be rather short compared to what is probably required in some areas of Russia.
Well thats cool (Score:5, Insightful)
I am quite happy someone wants to clone Windows to the point where a user can't tell that MS Windows has been replaced by ReactOS. Sort of like a Folger's commercial from way back when.
If they ever complete the project and get a viable version of it, then they have produced a version of Windows that can be run by anyone anywhere without violating Microsoft's copyright etc. It might piss of MS but it would mean and end to them pointing out how popular software piracy is based on the number of illegal copies of MS Windows there are out there, particularly in the third world.
It would also open the door to fixing a lot of the problems that MS ignored, and perhaps they are doing this as they develop it for that matter.
I can't see more free software hurting in any way at any rate, and this lets people capitalize on all the useful software they may currently rely on without having to change or learn new things. User's don't seem to like learning new things unless they are trivial to absorb.
Impress a dictator day (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that cozying up to a "president" that is in full swing of turning his country into a plutocrat dictatorship and police state while eliminating all opposition is the kind of publicity you want.
Re:Yay? (Score:2, Insightful)
The "ignore and hope it goes away" mentality is why it has been in development for 16 years and the progress is so slow. The average Windows user doesn't even know what source code is, and the average Linux user seems to have some sort of hate for Microsoft and everything they do. Which means Windows users don't care, and Linux users hiss like a cat at the mention of the project. That leaves a very small amount of people interested in the project, out of which only a handful have the experience to get involved in the development.
The idea of ReactOS is to be able to reuse the user software, but more importantly the drivers, since most of the consumer devices have Windows drivers that work properly and are supported by the companies that built the device. And do that while reimplementing as many of the system libraries as possible in open source code.
I will admit that I AM biased towards the Windows side of the OS world, nowadays. Part of the reason is that for whatever reason all my attempts at using Unix-based/inspired OSes (that includes multiple flavours of Linux, and Mac OS X) since around the year 2000 have ended in a lot of frustration and me having to repartition my HDD and put the latest version of Windows at the moment back in the HDD. But even when things still appeared to work, I have never been able to agree with the ideas of the POSIX design. That means I am interested in the ReactOS project, and I wish they had more people and resources so they were able to advance faster, and I even donated some money for it, but unless a lot more people to the same, or some organization decides to invest in the project, it will continue to be only a "semi-obscure OS that most people just ignore or hope it goes away".
Independence for Russia (Score:5, Insightful)
It's funny how a lot of people who seem to be American do not seem to get that for a large part of the world the USA is a threat as well as a promise. It's the butt headed attitude that the Roman Empire got into - we are the bringers of civilisation, everybody must love us. Only it turned out that the Goths didn't want it.
Re:Independence for Russia (Score:4, Insightful)
"if this gets completed Russia can be sure that Windows programs can be run in secure environments"
Trying to make a bug-compatible Windows clone is secure? You wind up implementing the same design decisions that Microsoft did that makes Windows an unsecure pile. Don't forget that Windows is a *consumer oriented* operating system and the design compromises show it.
It's funny how a lot of people who seem to be American do not seem to get that for a large part of the world the USA is a threat as well as a promise
If you want an OS that is truly international and not dependent on any one country, you want Linux or *BSD or even Plan9 if you don't want to roll your own. It would be cool if the Russians picked up Plan 9 and ran with it. It's got some really good ideas. Besides that, It's easier to write an OS from scratch than to reverse-engineer Windows. It's not like Russia is lacking in the people with that skillset.
Finally, trying to untie yourself from Microsoft and the US by reverse engineering Windows is self-defeating, isn't it? You remain wedded to whatever design Microsoft comes up in the future and chase that forever.
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BMO