my thoughts

[oiaohm]

I think Patents are the biggest chunk in the pie.

Not really. Biggest problem with patents is using them. Standard + hidden patents effective. Patents with no force for people to use the patented method are basically worthless since people can just find other ways of doing the same thing.

Working long enough with others to be come the defacto standard then fork off killing the others off is the most effective way to make a monopolies. Microsoft has done this many times.

Patents are effective way to make money from Standards if people don't demand standards that are not patent encumbered. Yes greater than copyright but way less than the defacto standard trick. Basically patents is the trick to pull out when it looks like you are going to lose a monopolies.

Copyrights are tail of the hunt. When it comes to programs basically not worth worrying about. If standards exists there will be clones. So price stays good even better if price is too high open source could clone.

If you are worrying about Copyrights on software to get something done. This tells you major things have gone wrong competition in the market is not working. Standards are normally missing and someone like MS has nicked the lunch.

By the way MS did the fake standard stunt using RTF on office suits to get its Office suit as the defacto standard. Then IE and its broken HTML. Outlook and Exchange secret protocols. List goes on and on. Result is a completely screwed up market today.

[b4dc0d3r]

I took your advice and ate both broccoli and spinach, but now my Windows won't boot. I think it's related to the amount of iron in my blood. I rubbed up against a metal stripper pole for an hour (long story - up only, not up and down), and now my bios is corrupt. Or so my compy says. I think I magnetized my high iron content blood, that's the only explanation I could come up with. When I was looking this up, I came across an ex-girlfriend's profile on a dating site. So what I need to know is, how did she get so fat?

[Sof_T]

Her problem is bloatware caused by a high wheat diet. You will notice despite high iron content problems you will keep a lean ReactOS type figure unlike non-broccoli eating Windows types.

[Haos]

Its getting offtopic again.

[EmuandCo]

right. Back to topic!

[Z98]

As for why you are permanently barred from starting new threads nute, it's due to multiple violations of our code of conduct and ignoring warnings from moderators. For that matter, when I disabled your account, I was intending for that to be permanent as well, but apparently the rest of the moderators felt you should be given another chance. It will be the next time I'm forced to do so. And I and the other moderators do not care if you are angry about the threat of being banned. Be angry all you want. We only care if your behavior changes. If it doesn't, then we do not wish for you to be here.

[EmuandCo]

z98. my ban was only for two weeks. i dont think he was unbanned.

[gabrielilardi]

z98. my ban was only for two weeks. i dont think he was unbanned.

Yeah, that's probably it, I haven't banned or unbanned anyone either.

[nute]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_license_agreement

Interestingly from the Wikipedia article, the legality of EULA's depends on which court you talk to and which country
you are in.

http://boingboing.net/2009/12/04/are-te ... rvice.html

Well that was a somewhat interesting, but perhaps not a very fruitful discussion of the enforceability of EULA's issue.

Plenty of time to ban someone, but no time to educate or be a peacemaker is a sad state of affairs for an open source
project. Another sad thing to see are persistent attacks against anyone for exhibiting religious character.

The issue of whether or not EULA's are enforceable does not seem to be resolved legally even in the US. Sadly,
from studying copyright law at least, the tendency has to been to make them enforceable for longer and longer
lengths of time. Unfortunately, the doubly linked list is copyrighted so that one technically can't use this data
structure without paying a royalty. This is an absurdity, noone should have been granted a copyright for that.
Bad law cannot be fought effectively by a minority taking on an overly complex project with overly limited resources.
The bad law has to be taken on directly by someone and the small group working on ReactOS clearly needs to be
augmented. I don't think the patch Windows XP or later approach should be abandoned without a fight. If Windows
is the standard, there is a fair use argument for opening that standard up to legitimate and fair competition.

As far as Bill Gates being charitable, I don't consider sterilizing people or handing out birth control charity.

[reactosfan]

Sorry to say that:

Do you have any real life problems to be discussed somewhere else?

[Sof_T]

However from your reading Nute you can see that there are major legal issues. The developers of this project have spent a lot of time looking into such issues and do their best to navigate a fairly safe route through the legal minefield, which is why usually when they say they can't do x or y or won't do x or y it is because they have already done the research. I totally agree that the copyright laws etc need a major overhaul as well as a look at what can and can't be patented, etc. However that is a battle which like so many things is beyond the scope of this project and which would serve only to bring the project to a complete halt.

I also agree with you that ones religious views have no bearing on any of this and shouldn't be discussed, however that has be cut both ways. So comments like this "As far as Bill Gates being charitable, I don't consider sterilizing people or handing out birth control charity." really don't help.

[Cloudy]

[quote=nute]Plenty of time to ban someone, but no time to educate or be a peacemaker is a sad state of affairs for an open source project. Another sad thing to see are persistent attacks against anyone for exhibiting religious character.[/quote]

They have more patience than I have. They constantly educate you, but you seem to be under the mistaken impression that you're right. You are good at giving our criticism and see any disagreement with you as a personal attack. You really need to learn how to communicate, because you fail to grasp the premise that dialogue is both people speaking and listening to each other.

You on the otherhand just dig up any information to try and make your opinion the only one that matters. I personally dread seeing your name as it's a sure fire way of knowing that a topic is about to be completely derailed.

[Black_Fox]

Please stop educating, attacking, threatening or offending nute if you make it in order to make him quiet. It's like throwing wood into a fire in order to extinguish it.

[steveh]

@nute,
you say reactos will take another 10 years before being final and production quality
but your quite pessimistic previews are wrong


the first final and production quality release "reactos 1.0" will be out in early 2014, two or 3 months before microsoft ends support of windows xp.

tiapfasdwatoososoiomotaof
waatsotswmliy (citation pjc)

[nute]

Well Steve, if you can say that ReactOS is going to be stable in less than 10 years and that indeed happens, great. I think you will find though that it could be 10 years before a stable release is available. I guess we will all know in 3-5 years if it will take longer longer or not for ReactOS to become stable. I am not trying to say that I want ReactOS to remain unstable for 10 years, I am just trying to be realistic by saying that this might happen.

Telling me that it is illegal to replace portions of Windows XP or later with open source code is dubious at best. While there is no clear indication that this is legal, there is no clear indication that this is illegal either. I feel strongly that there is a fair use argument for letting competitors release patches for Microsoft Windows to effectively replace Microsoft's proprietary code gradually and support the large Windows software base sooner than later. Another argument is that Microsoft has many versions of Windows in use in the wild now where losing complete dominance over versions it doesn't care about anymore isn't going to hurt the company much. Even if the project were to come to a halt to fight for the right to patch say Windows XP with open source replacement libraries, that may still be the way to go. What of the open source service pack for Windows 98SE to make it feel more like Windows 2000? How is that service pack illegal? I haven't heard of any lawsuits from Microsoft filed against that project.

ReactOS 0.3.11 came out a long time ago, December 16, 2009 judging by a newsletter on this. In all fairness, there are no hard set release dates for ReactOS. Five and a half months though does seem like an unusually long dry spell to not have another major release. Add to this that I am still unable to get ReactOS to compile on Windows XP using the latest build environment and updating my copy of the source repository. I'm starting to wonder if I need Microsoft tools to get ReactOS to build.

Last I heard, Bill Gate's, "charity work," involves sterilizing people and handing out birth control. I consider sterilizing people and encouraging promiscuity a human rights violation. Gates has more wealth than he can possibly spend on himself. If he really wants to be charitable, he needs to open the computer software market up to more innovation and competition. For starters, why doesn't Bill Gates fund open source software projects with some meat to them like this one? Even if Gates were to pay the developers of ReactOS $50k a piece per year for their work, that would be a small sacrifice for Gates who is worth $50 billion or more to make. If I am not mistaken, Gates could give every person on the planet a dollar.