New OS Development: We Need People Interested In.

[DennisCGc]

Lol
I found something on the reactos website...

Before ReactOS Around about 1996 some people formed a group called FreeWin95, with the goal to implement an operating system that would be a clone of Windows 95. Unfortunately, as with many new ambitious Open Source projects, it was stuck in a rut of endless talk about the design of the system, with no results.

I think you only read this part....
But later, it's explained to be a windows nt clone.

ReactOS Beginnings At the end of 1997, the project had burnt out with nothing to show. Jason Filby became project coordinator and called on everyone still subscribed to the list to revive the project. It was decided that the target should be Windows NT and that there would be an emphasis on results -- on written code rather than endless talk. The project was renamed ReactOS, since the operating system's roots grew out of a dissatisfaction with Microsoft's monopoly over the operating system market. In February 1998, ReactOS began.

So.... ::)

[Solar]

One thing up front: This ain't a flame, and not meant as offense, but heart-felt advice coming from a painful lesson learned. Let's say I see weak spots when they present themselves...

Hello,
We are a small software development organization. I am the boss of it.

You don't seem like having something to show yet - not even so much as a web page (task manager, bug tracker, roadmap, presentation of goals, detailing of plan).

I know how you feel. I felt the same, a bit over two years ago. I thought, a good idea, a website, some posts and everything would work out because my idea is so good.

Sorry but it won't work that way. Open Source only works when you already have something to show, as most project heads here (including myself) will attest. Unless you are at that point, the best you can hope for is a handfull of people with widely differing ideas and little motivation to do the dirty work.

But I disgress. Let's start with a couple of simple questions:

* what CPU are you targeting?
* what are the development tools employed?
* have you set up a code repository, and what VCS are you using?
* how much have you achieved yet?
* what license is it developed under?
* what is the programming language of choice?
* what, in your eyes, would motivate those hanging around here - each one with a project of his/her own - to spend time on your project instead?

[waheed]

Your quests are very solid. Your questions and their answers are following:

* what CPU are you targeting?
- x86, IBM compatible processors

* what are the development tools employed?
- Development tools are Assembly, c/c++, and for windows core, eith vb/vc or some bettre one.

* have you set up a code repository, and what VCS are you using?
- We are setting these up, our website is www.maqron.com which is under server shift, but u can have some info there about us.

* how much have you achieved yet?
- We are ine very beging. Bootloader, and a small kernel like dos. Soon we shall have it as multi threaded, u can say multithreaded DOS.

* what license is it developed under?
- It will reside under GPL for home use and from Organizational/comercial use, we shall/can charge.

* what is the programming language of choice?
- Development tools are Assembly, c/c++, and for windows core, eith vb/vc or some bettre one.

* what, in your eyes, would motivate those hanging around here - each one with a project of his/her own - to spend time on your project instead?
- YES this is the question, My point of view is we shall work under a team and each team will be assinged tasks collectivly. There will be some team leads, some project Manages. Tasks will be assigned to PMs or TLs and they will know their team and will divide the work according to their needs. Each tasl done, e.g a team develops Media Player, shall have its own names on credits etc. And whenever we shall have any donation and sponsors, we shall distribute that in all. e.g we have sponsor for media development, major part will go to media team.


But I know, it is not sufficient to convince people to work with us.

[ASHLEY4]

This let's make a xp/linux clone, is the wrong anser to the ?,
Of what do you do to get people to use your OS,So you ask them ,They say if i can run MS this and that and if there were lots of programs and easy to use i would use it,So you go to makers of programs and say Y do you not make progrrams for my OS and they say, Get 100.000 people to use it and i will.
That puts you in a catch 22,you can not have one with out the other.

The anser is simple
1) Make your OS command-like MS eg: "c:\",So people do not have to learn new commands.
2) Make your OS boot from a cd like a live linux,so people can try it, and others can make suff for it.
When you have got lots of people useing and lots of progs for your OS,Then you put it on the harddrive etc.

ASHLEY4.

[Tim]

Here's the biggest question in my opinion:

Why does the world need another ReactOS?

Surely your time would be better spent enhancing that, than starting again from scratch.

[waheed]

Gr8, but what we are going to do is not reactos. It will be a totally different one.

[Tim]

But ReactOS and your OS are both clones of Windows NT, so they should be identical.

[Perica]

..

[Candy]

Yes you are right that it has NTOSKRNL.EXE, but infact it is not a tru NT clone yet, it is very close to WIN95 but more stable.

There's this one very distinct difference between win95 and winnt. It is not the feature set, it's not whether they're targeting win95 or nt programs, it's being fully 32-bits, and from that, security. ReactOS does do ACL's, protection of programs, multitasking and threading without crashing the entire system from one thread or such.

[mystran]

Sorry for this rant but..

* what are the development tools employed?
- Development tools are Assembly, c/c++, and for windows core, eith vb/vc or some bettre one.

I think this question was supposed to be more like: What bug-tracking tool you use? What source control system do you use? Do you have project management tools that you plan to use?

* have you set up a code repository, and what VCS are you using?
- We are setting these up, our website is www.maqron.com which is under server shift, but u can have some info there about us.

VCS stands for "Version Control System". Example include open source tools like CVS (which has some issues but at least it's both free and tested) and Subversion (which is supposed to fix the biggest problems with CVS), and commercial ones include at least Visual SourceSafe (which sucks btw, but is still better than nothing), Perforce (which I have no experience with) and a few others.

About your website, other than the "our vision" style "say nothing", there's no content so I find it rather useless for any of us as it currently is. Btw, you should really check your site with browser-settings that forbids unreadably small text, since the layout has a small problem as soon as text is scaled up a bit.
(I admit that I did not try with smaller fonts so the problem MIGHT be totally unrelated to font-sizes).

* what license is it developed under?
- It will reside under GPL for home use and from Organizational/comercial use, we shall/can charge.

1) it's not GPL anymore if you limit to whom it applies. If it's GPL, then anybody, including corporations may use it, modify it, distribute it, sell it, and pretty much everything, provided it stays under the GPL.

2) Even if you DID dual license on the basis that GPL version doesn't receive official support while your corporate version does, it is likely that any potential contributors limit YOUR right to use their contributions, so that in the end you have your own code under dual license, and other peoples code under only GPL. Having a dual license might also discourage contributions somewhat.

* what is the programming language of choice?
- Development tools are Assembly, c/c++, and for windows core, eith vb/vc or some bettre one.

Notice that you are not really going to use VB to implement anything, before you have basicly copied everything real Windows have to the point that you can run normal graphical Windows programs on top of it.

* what, in your eyes, would motivate those hanging around here - each one with a project of his/her own - to spend time on your project instead?
- YES this is the question, My point of view is we shall work under a team and each team will be assinged tasks collectivly. There will be some team leads, some project Manages. Tasks will be assigned to PMs or TLs and they will know their team and will divide the work according to their needs. Each tasl done, e.g a team develops Media Player, shall have its own names on credits etc. And whenever we shall have any donation and sponsors, we shall distribute that in all. e.g we have sponsor for media development, major part will go to media team.

So either you are not answering the VERY valid question, or you are trying to say that ONCE you have sponsors, people that work for the sponsored projects are going to get money.

I find it unlikely that you find sponsors really soon, and even if you do, I still find it unlikely that any developers will be able to get enough sponsored money (after you take your share, I suppose) that money would be a real motivator at all.

I think that if you are really going to get contributors, you need to rethink your plan first. I'd start by figuring out what is going to be your contribution to the community, ie. why do people benefit from you. Given the popularity of ReactOS (no offence Candy or anyone) most people interested in running Windows in the first place are already happily using Microsoft's original.

Personally, I'd prefer people making Wine better, so that if once in a while I have to run a Windows application, I could do it directly from my Linux box.

But I know, it is not sufficient to convince people to work with us.

Indeed.

[distantvoices]

Yet Another Hoorray We Have Managed Bootloader Stage - Project. And what goes on beyond?

I worked on my own kernel thingie about one year before I dared to put it onto my webserver for public access. You see, it is at least a little bit to show off with.

My dear waheed, don't bamboozle yourselves, open yer eyes and go on with yer work and don't come here and try to .. hire people off their own projects. Well especially those successfully driving theirs forward don't seem to have a hankering for Yet Another Bootloader Project to join with. *gg* You get the point?

[Schol-R-LEA]

Perhaps the real question is not so much "why should people put effort into Yet Another Windows Clone when there already is ReactOS, WINE for Linux, Lindows, and any number of crashed and burned attempts that were never more than a page on SourceForge", but rather, "If Windows isn't worth spending money to buy, what makes you think a workalike of it will be worth using for free?"

How does you OS distinguish itself from Windows, from ReactOS, and from the other open source OSes around which are either clones of or can emulate Windows? In other words: what is your 'killer app'?

It is one thing to argue that an open source OS is better based on it's own merits; Linux and the BSDs have advantages over both commercial Unices and Windows which their users appreciate. Had they not offered something better or at least different, they could not have survived just on the basis of being free.

Given that most users simply take the Windows that comes preinstalled on their packaged systems, it is unlikely that they would turn to a free, but less complete, copy of Windows (and since you are copying them, it must be less complete - you will need to match them update for update, pretty much, or else you'll diverge too far and become incompatible) when they already have paid the Microsoft Tax? Conversely, if a user is going to install their own OS, and don't want to pay for Windows, why should they turn to a free Windows workalike rather than, say, using Linux and running WINE, which gives them access to both Windows and Linux software?

[DennisCGc]

Why does the world need another ReactOS?

Because, ReactOS doesn't work at ALL on most of the computers.
And I hope the OS does work.
Okay, let's say it else:

If Linus Torvalds would think: there's already a unix, why not port it ?, then Linux would not even exist!
And I know what you're thinking: this isn't related with the new os, but the answer is yes, because linux is a kind of unix clone, though nothing is used from unix (the kernel).
So, the creators are thinking: let's create a new os that can run windows and linux, like ReactOS.
It could be considered to be a clone of it, but it MAY work better.

If Windows isn't worth spending money to buy, what makes you think a workalike of it will be worth using for free?

Many people (like John Average) are dependable of using Windows, because many software engineers creates software for Windows.
(I wish the target was Linux )
NO FLAMING EVER meant, but just my opinion.

[Schol-R-LEA]

You still haven't answered the real question, which is: what is it about your system that a user would choose it over the OS that comes already installed on their computer as part of (or even the majority of) the purchase price?

In the case of Linux, there are specific reasons why users choose it. They may not always be the best reasons, but they have them. If you want user to do the same with your OS, you have to give them equally compelling reasons to do so. 'Because it is Free' is not enough, as most users already have Windows installed; you are in effect asking them to put aside what they've already paid for. Why should they do that?

I'm not saying that there is no such reason, but rather, I'm saying that these are the questions you should be asking yourselves when you start making the crucial design decisions of you OS. This applies to any OS developer who is looking to create a new industry-grade system (as opposed to a hobbyist, student or experimental OS).

[DennisCGc]

You still haven't answered the real question, which is: what is it about your system that a user would choose it over the OS that comes already installed on their computer as part of (or even the majority of) the purchase price?

Could be true, in fact, I would do the same
But when you buy a computer from HP (I think), you can choose Linux to be installed, and I think the computer would be a lot cheaper

ANSWER: Many users would let it installed.
(sorry that it took so long, had to make up something )