ReactOS webserver on realhardware!

[reactux]

I think this is an overall good idea, but I should warn you that the FSF and their strict followers oppose hosting flash content (or java) until a free flash player (gnash) is developed, and I bet a usable one won't be out for a year or so.

Although quite frankly, if the FSF does make a big deal out of us using flash, we may get alot more interest in our project simply as people find out about its idea.

the problems are:
*gnash can crash firefox

the good thigs are:
*there is a standalone client that use open-gl
->the drawback is that you need 3d aceleration...

mabe i should install gnash on a firefox that is in a new slot(gentoo=>you can install 2 version of the same software but you need to modify the ebuilds for that)

the java content is a bit different because there are open-source/free software java...
(i won't go in the details)

[Coviti]

I'm working on a design...
If you don't like it please tell me and I'll try to fix it. Designing layout isn't something that I do on a daily basis so it might look a little unproffesional at some points.
Maybe a good design?

Looks good, except for typos. "Witch" instead of "Which" kinda gives an unprofessional impression, but I understand. Just please try to Spellcheck before actually hosting an official ReactOS webserver. After all, we do want to impress people!

[Switchboy]

I'm working on a design...
If you don't like it please tell me and I'll try to fix it. Designing layout isn't something that I do on a daily basis so it might look a little unproffesional at some points.
Maybe a good design?

Looks good, except for typos. "Witch" instead of "Which" kinda gives an unprofessional impression, but I understand. Just please try to Spellcheck before actually hosting an official ReactOS webserver. After all, we do want to impress people!

Offcourse maybe someone who is a native englisch speaker can check the text for spelling mistakes?

[billyswong]

I'm working on a design...
If you don't like it please tell me and I'll try to fix it. Designing layout isn't something that I do on a daily basis so it might look a little unproffesional at some points.
Maybe a good design?

Looks good, except for typos. "Witch" instead of "Which" kinda gives an unprofessional impression, but I understand. Just please try to Spellcheck before actually hosting an official ReactOS webserver. After all, we do want to impress people!

Offcourse maybe someone who is a native englisch speaker can check the text for spelling mistakes?

English is not my mother tongue too but a dictionary always helps :
"The OS is build from..." -> "The OS is built from..."
"...networking capabilities, to have..." ->"...networking capabilities. To have..."

[Jaix]

Hello, nice to see the engagement here, I have just returned form Denmark and in the beginning of the next week I will start working on make the machine stable wiht the CC manager branch patch.

Well, before we say anything to the world (except here) we will make extensive tests on the machine internaly so we can see if it can cope with our own load, then if we are satisfied we will break the news open.

I am open for a server side component, if that doesn't work we go back to client side stuff. Also to use the ZazouMiniWebServer michael79 was talking about. And surely PHP, SQLite and so on would be very impressive in this early ROS stage.

I really don't think flash has an issue, it's just that we server the files from our server and let the clients deal with it OpenSource or ClosedSource. I have already hosted flash and PDF from a ROS webserver to the IRC channel for some days (months ago and for some hours some days ago). Do we have any really good flash animators that can create a stunning Flashmovie worthy of world exhibition?

Perhaps 450 is too small for a heavy load, and if so I have more machines to try, that is just a really stable machine that I like working with. The size of 50M was meant for the whole site not for a single download.

Some music to download is good, but I think ogg is a format that not everyone can play, I have never played an ogg in my life (what I know of), but we can have mp3 too that solves the problem. Perhaps we could have the ReactOS theme music in the Flash file?

I think the design of Switchboy is good, but we need like 5 different pages of information on the site with good information we like to share with the world, stuff to get people interesting in getting plugged in and starting to contribute.

Does someone know a good cgi guestbook that works with Tinyweb and ReactOS that can be inserted on one of the pages of Switchboy's webpages?

[Matthias]

There is currently no free (as in free speech) and working Flash Player around (Gnash is in alpha stage). By spreading flash movies, you force people to use non-free software and thus you take away their freedom. Actually, spreading flash movies would mean to betray everything free software enthusiasts believe in. It is contrary to the spirit of the GPL and thus the wrong thing to do, especially for a free software project.
Sure, flash is well-spread, it works well and you can do fancy things with it. But my concerns are not of practical, but of ethical nature. What's the point in writing a free (as in freedom) operating system if we then force people to use proprietary software again? It'd be pointless.

[reactux]

There is currently no free (as in free speech) and working Flash Player around (Gnash is in alpha stage). By spreading flash movies, you force people to use non-free software and thus you take away their freedom. Actually, spreading flash movies would mean to betray everything free software enthusiasts believe in. It is contrary to the spirit of the GPL and thus the wrong thing to do, especially for a free software project.
Sure, flash is well-spread, it works well and you can do fancy things with it. But my concerns are not of practical, but of ethical nature. What's the point in writing a free (as in freedom) operating system if we then force people to use proprietary software again? It'd be pointless.

the flash issue is a problem
personaly i don't have any flash
if he choose to make flash,he should only know that some people doesn't have flash because of this issue

If you choose to serve some flash,i would advise you to permit the download of the flash animations for people having gnash(so they download it and run it under the opengl player)

by the way i use gentoo,and so in gentoo we have gnash but by default it only install the open-gl player
So others distributions may not have gnash...

[tgc]

There is currently no free (as in free speech) and working Flash Player around (Gnash is in alpha stage). By spreading flash movies, you force people to use non-free software and thus you take away their freedom. Actually, spreading flash movies would mean to betray everything free software enthusiasts believe in. It is contrary to the spirit of the GPL and thus the wrong thing to do, especially for a free software project.
Sure, flash is well-spread, it works well and you can do fancy things with it. But my concerns are not of practical, but of ethical nature. What's the point in writing a free (as in freedom) operating system if we then force people to use proprietary software again? It'd be pointless.

I'm a member of the gnash-devel team, and i'm afraid you right in saying that gnash isn't really ready for the masses yet. For example sound support is non-existing at the moment, but we are working on it...
But until gnash gets ready, why not use SVG-animations? It's free, supported by firefox, and there is a plugin for IE... The problem is probably to get software to create animated SVG's...
I'm actually thinking about putting up a ROS webserver myself... I got an old 800MHz Duron and a 6Mb/6Mb connection, but the current SVN seems a bit too unstable.

[Jaix]

There is currently no free (as in free speech) and working Flash Player around (Gnash is in alpha stage). By spreading flash movies, you force people to use non-free software and thus you take away their freedom. Actually, spreading flash movies would mean to betray everything free software enthusiasts believe in. It is contrary to the spirit of the GPL and thus the wrong thing to do, especially for a free software project.
Sure, flash is well-spread, it works well and you can do fancy things with it. But my concerns are not of practical, but of ethical nature. What's the point in writing a free (as in freedom) operating system if we then force people to use proprietary software again? It'd be pointless.

Well, I love the opensource movement, but I don't hate the commercial stuff that exists in the world, especially when it's free, it's only creating Flash that craves a commercial software that isn't free. And if we want to create a SVG movie we will need commercial software too, so where do we draw the line? I think we don't have to be hypocritical, I think most of us has some non-opensource software that we use, games, utilities, apps or drivers. But if we can get a SVG-file as good as a flash I am not opposed to use that. I have hosted SVG-files on ros-webserver too, but I havn't seen any really amazing SVG-movies in my life, only static information or maybe some moving content but nothing really impressive.
I think the line should be drawn as follows: "If it is good we can use it! If it's free that's even better and if it is opensource we salute it!"
I don't stop drinking coke because they don't share their recipe, I have a car with a lot of patented solutions and I have a company and I own patents to guard my inventions.
I don't want to throw rocks on anybodys ideas, I just don't want to be an idealist and ascetic, but that is just me.

[tgc]

... I have hosted SVG-files on ros-webserver too, but I havn't seen any really amazing SVG-movies in my life, only static information or maybe some moving content but nothing really impressive.

SVG can be used for similar stuff as flash, it's just not so widespread... Here's a sample of a simple game, and a transparancy and interactivity example. Both taken from here. We just need to start using SVG

[Cristan]

I suggest leaving this suggestion and lose both flash and SVG. It simply doesn't really add anything to the site exept eye-candy. And I am sure that all slashdotters know that hosting flash on your site isn't any more difficult than hosting any other file on your website.

As for ogg, it isn't really wide spread, but it is quite well known in the open source world (because it is open source). You can play it with winamp out of the box, and with Windows Media Player with just about any codec pack installed.
In case we want to host a song, it would still be quite a difficult choice. MP3 is patented and won't play defaultly by several linux distributions, and OGG doesn't play in Windows Media Player by default..

[Matthias]

Well, I love the opensource movement,

You say you love something, but then you say that you want to betray it. What kind of love is that?

but I don't hate the commercial stuff that exists in the world, especially when it's free, it's only creating Flash that craves a commercial software that isn't free. And if we want to create a SVG movie we will need commercial software too, so where do we draw the line?

If you don't care about your freedom, use proprietary software. But what you absolutely musn't to is to force me, and perhaps other people, to use non-free (e. g. Closed source) software and thus force them to give up their freedom. There are very few good reasons for doing this, and playing fancy flash movies is certainly not one of them.

I don't want to throw rocks on anybodys ideas

Well, that's what you're doing. You're throwing rocks on the ideas of RMS, who wrote our license and, even more important, got the free software movement started (when i say free, think free speech, not free beer)

If you absolutely must use flash, make sure that the movie runs in Gnash, so that people have at least theoretically the possibility of using non-free software, even though in alpha stage.

[geertvdijk]

Well, I love the opensource movement,

You say you love something, but then you say that you want to betray it. What kind of love is that?

but I don't hate the commercial stuff that exists in the world, especially when it's free, it's only creating Flash that craves a commercial software that isn't free. And if we want to create a SVG movie we will need commercial software too, so where do we draw the line?

If you don't care about your freedom, use proprietary software. But what you absolutely musn't to is to force me, and perhaps other people, to use non-free (e. g. Closed source) software and thus force them to give up their freedom. There are very few good reasons for doing this, and playing fancy flash movies is certainly not one of them.

I don't want to throw rocks on anybodys ideas

Well, that's what you're doing. You're throwing rocks on the ideas of RMS, who wrote our license and, even more important, got the free software movement started (when i say free, think free speech, not free beer)

I don't know, but betrayal is not to make a choice for something else when no other option is available. I'm sure he'd go for the open source one, if there were a good one.

[MadWolf]

hi
imho this issue with flash is B.S jus grow up you cannot have everything if you whant gnash to be developed faster then help the gnash project

[Phalanx]

Hope your going to rewite the ATI Catalyst Drivers soon then...

Come on. I have no problem with closed source programs if they do not limit you from getting the opensourced ones. Since you do not need flash to get ReactOS. It is just like the ATI/Nvidia drivers. You don't need them to run ReactOS, but they would be nice to have.