Re: [ros-kernel] Forward: "ReactOS is too limited"

[Nick D. <nic...@ya...>]

Hi Hyperion,

----- Original Message -----
From: "KJK::Hyperion" <no...@li...>
To: "ReactOS-Kernel" <rea...@li...>
Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 3:53 AM
Subject: [ros-kernel] Forward: "ReactOS is too limited"


> my dear friend, klan-mate, and silent ReactOS advocate Juliet forwards me
> some criticism to our project from the sunny land of Usenet:

[Juliet wrote ...]

> IMHO Reactos is too limited, it's doomed to an eternal pursuit to the
> NT-based kernel functionalities, and whenever it will become a vague
menace

So NT is a limitation but Linux/Un*x isn't? I envisage the ROS kernel to be
NT compatible with a good POSIX subsystem to start with. Later on there will
always be room for additional subsystems (a feature that I believe many
developers will take full advantage of).

My experience of installing and using Linux includes Linux/X/one of the 5
million window managers or whatever; not recognising three different
graphics cards, and the one time I managed to get X to run with one of my
graphics cards it tried to break my monitor. Nice.

After looking through reams of unhelpful (and sometimes contradictory) Linux
FAQs and other DOCs, I ventured onto some Linux forums where I was told to
"RTFM" (by people with 5 inch thick glasses, a permanent hunch and acne that
would make a leopard feel jealous, I have no doubt).

The Linux command line is unhelpful, unfriendly and unforgiving. Maybe it
was useful in the past (to save disk space, processor power, memory, etc.)
to use an OS with a minimal amount of messages, but times have changed. We
live in an age where the minimum spec processor you can buy (at least in the
UK) is 1 GHz and systems come with 512MB RAM standard.

Linux may be good as a web server. Apache is an excellent program, but
people will be able to run the win32 version on ReactOS soon so what
possible use will Linux have then? (except maybe as a firewall - wow!).

> to M$, it would be badly put down with legal suits, the true alternative

How? Microsoft are an American company, and what holds up in a US court
would be thrown out in another country. Even looking at the Microsoft
license agreement raises big questions as to how legal it is and a
click-through contract isn't worth the paper it's written on. Offer and
acceptance? You can't accept something you haven't read.

Added to this, Bill Gates is probably the richest man in the world. He
brings in millions and millions of US dollars into the States every year, so
the chances are that the US government quite likes him (who wouldn't?).
Certainly over here the courts would see his company as a foreign capitalist
trying to destroy small local businesses or/and developers trying to make a
fair income.

The legality of the M$ EULA is about to be investigated by the EU, so watch
out Bill. No captialism in my back garden, thank you very much.

> would rather be building a new user-friendly frontend to
> Linux/FreeBSD/Hurd, like Apple did, only this time the frontend must be
> made open source, and errors such as the scattering of resources happening
> with Gnome vs. KDE must be avoided this time

Why? It's true that at best these window managers (? - why have more than
one in the first place?) can emulate a Mac/Win32 interface. At worst you
don't know what's going on with them half the time. A new wm would mean that
it wouldn't be complete (at least the "user-friendly" bit wouldn't be) for
quite some time so you'd have the added confusion of "yet another X wm"
(yaxwm - there you go. it's already sounding very Linux).

> Comments?

Sorry mate, but I had to say my piece. I have some serious issues regarding
the use of a clone of a 30 (?) year old operating system for anything other
than simple tasks. Live in the now, guys.

Regards,

Nick.

--
Nick Date
Bath, England, UK




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