wdstudios wrote: ↑Thu Aug 23, 2018 1:11 am
Whoa there, go easy on the Linux/POSIX hate!
I strongly dislike some of the anti-Linux sentiment in this forum as well. But I think the biggest thing you're seeing in this reaction is actually more in regards to the casual mention of [POSIX compliance] in the format of essentially, "Why didn't you guys ever think to try [this]? It should be easy."
This project has been around in one form or another for about 22 years now. It's goal is binary compatibility with Windows Server 2003/XP, which is a big undertaking. A project of this scale needs to aggressively fight one almost thing above all else - feature creep. If the devs kept adding new features and functions to the goal for a 1.0 release, it would certainly never happen. The scope of what ROS 1.0 will do must be limited, especially not to include anything beyond the NT basics.
If ROS can achieve it's goal - basic but complete Windows NT 5.2 compatibility - then everything afterwards becomes much easier. So many software packages will suddenly just work like they should. As I pointed out before - Windows has software that can be installed in order to make it essentially POSIX-compliant.
The other major thing to note is that these forums are filled with posts by someone who discovers ReactOS, think's it's a great idea, then comes here and immediately posts something like:
Hey, just found ReactOS. Great work! Say, you know what I think would really help you guys out? Have you ever thought about just using the Linux kernel with WINE on top and making that super slick? You've been working for 20 years on this one specifically defined goal, but just throw that all away and build what anyone with a brain can install at home in 15 minutes. Ubuntu + WINE = BOOM. DONE. No need to thank me, but maybe if you could build Steam into ReactOS too, that'd be great.
The others that frequent this forum are obviously tired of it, and I can't really blame them. I try to assume that these people mean well, but are just a bit uninformed, but it can be tiring to repeat yourself. Many newcomers here don't even understand that ROS is alpha software, which is literally front and center on the homepage.
And lastly, the devs here aren't uninformed, nor are they going to work needlessly. ReactOS includes chunks of code from other open source projects - namely WINE. There's a full list here:
https://reactos.org/wiki/Third_party_libraries But the thing about POSIX compliance (at least the way that I remember it being implemented on Windows) is that it actually imposes restrictions on you, modifying the way the Windows operates. I recall Windows becoming case-sensitive in filenames and paths, for example. This would deviate from the primary development goal of ROS and therefore doesn't make sense to pursue.