ReactOS Forum

Hi,
I thought about the different governments budget restrictions and I have thought, why not make partnership with them to propose a real alternative to Windows ?
With the budget and the manpower of few governments, the development would be faster and the focus on the project would be bigger.

Making politics entering into an open-source project is always dangerous.

shunesburg wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 2:43 pm make partnership with them

The idea itself isn't terrible (aside from what hbelusca pointed out - involving politics in FOSS), but I wonder what exactly that partnership would look like? "Hey, we've got this free OS we're working on. Give us some cash and you can have the OS for... free...?"

Also, with ROS being open source and all, any government could simply copy the code and assign some internal dev team to make whatever changes they wanted. Heck, there could already be some ROS code in use within some government-created utility somewhere. It's not like they need permission, and if it were considered an issue of national security, you'd certainly never hear about it.

hbelusca wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 3:21 pm Making politics entering into an open-source project is always dangerous.

Why dangerous, it's open source no matter what they do, and if it's only financial partnership it's good and not risky at all ?

shunesburg wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 4:54 pm if it's only financial partnership

What would a government get/expect in return for their money? How would some other government feel about that?

Whatever government would get access to a stable OS faster. That is the only reason really, that anyone would want to give to ReactOS, because they believe in the project and want it to be available for daily use ASAP. Also, some may want to give for the warm fuzzies or to get kudos from the public. And maybe the ReactOS Foundation could offer exclusive ongoing support to big ticket donors (government or not). By big ticket, maybe those who give over a million dollars or Euros, or whatever.

And I wonder what the Foundation would do if said governments were to ask us for closed source modifications on the side under semi-secretive conditions, if these governments would also pay into the publicly offered version of ReactOS?

As for other governments, that I don't know. I've been trying to think about how to deal with that. I wonder if it would be helpful if there were a 3rd party, self-supported, agency who could represent all the governments and then act as the liaison with us.

PurpleGurl wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 8:04 pm I wonder what the Foundation would do if said governments were to ask us for closed source modifications on the side under semi-secretive conditions

I'm not an expert at licensing, but I believe that if the ROS devs did this, they would be violating their own GPL? (Any modifications made and distributed must be released publicly.) Unless one cannot violate their own GPL...

PurpleGurl wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 8:04 pm if there were a 3rd party, self-supported, agency who could represent all the governments

Like the UN?

I meant more like an agency that represented the governments in terms of software alone. I'm not sure if we'd want the UN involved.

karlexceed wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 8:27 pm

PurpleGurl wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 8:04 pm I wonder what the Foundation would do if said governments were to ask us for closed source modifications on the side under semi-secretive conditions

I'm not an expert at licensing, but I believe that if the ROS devs did this, they would be violating their own GPL? (Any modifications made and distributed must be released publicly.) Unless one cannot violate their own GPL...

You can't violate your own license, however each individual dev only owns the copyright on a few select files/functions, so working only with "your own" stuff will put pretty strict limits on the usefulness of doing that.

Some administrations in the past and currently use open source OS and share them development without political opinion and without problem.

Ex: Gendarmerie Française (French Army Police), the City of Munich, Lithuania police, the China government, the city of Barcelona, Umbria in Italy...

PurpleGurl wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 8:04 pm Whatever government would get access to a stable OS faster. That is the only reason really, that anyone would want to give to ReactOS, because they believe in the project and want it to be available for daily use ASAP. Also, some may want to give for the warm fuzzies or to get kudos from the public.

I can think of another reason. A State might wish to reduce the competitiveness and profitability of a major US-based software exporter.

And I wonder what the Foundation would do if said governments were to ask us for closed source modifications on the side under semi-secretive conditions, if these governments would also pay into the publicly offered version of ReactOS?

I do not understand what prevents "said governments" from making "closed source modifications" to ReactOS without involving the ReactOS Foundation. If I understand the licenses that cover ReactOS code correctly, use within one's own organization is not considered 'distribution'.

Yes Middings, I get what you are saying, and no argument here. But I threw out the hypothetical one where lets say they want the devs here to make closed source mods under secrecy in exchange for a large donation. Would the Foundation accept, if that meant more funds to work on the open source ReactOS?

On the "major software exporter," yes, I can understand why certain world leaders who may be either just cheap or who may hate capitalism would side with us. I know there are is a huge country in particular who is really bad about paying for its OS software, and where up to 90% of what is installed is counterfeit/cracked.

shunesburg wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 4:54 pm Why dangerous, it's open source no matter what they do, and if it's only financial partnership it's good and not risky at all ?

Suppose that Reactos is associated with a government, and this by financing the project wants to close the public because is paying a large sum of money for changes, what would we do in that case?

manuel wrote: ↑Mon Sep 03, 2018 5:33 am

shunesburg wrote: ↑Thu Aug 30, 2018 4:54 pm Why dangerous, it's open source no matter what they do, and if it's only financial partnership it's good and not risky at all ?

Suppose that Reactos is associated with a government, and this by financing the project wants to close the public because is paying a large sum of money for changes, what would we do in that case?

It's impossible to close the code because of the open source licence, and if the association leaders would become crazy by money, a fork is always possible.

Current copyright law often special-cases government itself, meaning they may create an exception, exempting themselves from share-alike or royalties to private entities. Do not forget that copyright is a government-enforced privilege, not a civil right.