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ReactOS – Legal or Not?

6 points by kirha ↗ HN
Inspired by some other recent thread here, I would like to discuss the legality of ReactOS. So far it's been found that Wine no longer accepts contributions from ReactOS, as they stated on their website "Don't look at ReactOS code either (not even header files). A lot of it was reverse-engineered using methods that are not appropriate for Wine, and it's therefore not a usable source of information for us. [1]" (source: https://wiki.winehq.org/Clean_Room_Guidelines)

Also found https://www.osnews.com/story/15175/review-reactos/ with some comments from ReactOS developer.

Finally, after some deep searching I found https://web.archive.org/web/20070106124749if_/http://www.reactos.org:80/wiki/index.php/TinyKRNL it is no longer available on their website. From one side they say that they had relationship with Tinykrnl and the latter used dirty reverse engineering methods. On the other side they said they couldn't directly utilize it. I also found that Tinykrnl and ReactOS had at least two common developers.

I don't know what to think about it. I'm puzzled.

9 comments

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JPLeRouzic
I guess now the kernel is written in C++. I didn't look at it but if it's true, it's probably very different from the sources from MS. And anyway the snippets I compared between Reactos kernel source code around 2005 and Microsoft source leaks, shown they were quite different. And if you look at really old Reactos code (pre 2.x), it is very very different from the code found later. So it could be argued that there was a continuous progression, which would not be the case if they had used heavily MS sources (legal and leaks). And a lot of code comes from other open source projects, for example the USB stack was imported from Haiku.

I also expect current Reactos developers much less "adventurous" than some older developers.

Anyway if you use Linuw + Wine (or Codewaiver or alternatives) you have a good OS plus good Windows compatibility.

kirha
It is still written in C.
JPLeRouzic
They are moving toward a C++ code:

"It also adds support for the latest C and C++ standards, marking a first step towards the introduction of modern C++ concepts into ReactOS"

https://reactos.org/project-news/rosbe-22-released/

kirha
Operating system is complex project that consists of many elements. Kernel is one of them and it is written in C and assembler.

What you write is truth but it doesn't apply to kernel.

boricj
I think that this submission would make more sense as an Ask HN.
kirha
feel free to post link here
mindcrime
The stuff you posted seems to be pretty ancient, so I wouldn't read much into that in and of itself. That said, there have always been questions about whether or not MS would eventually go after ReactOS on some sort of IP grounds. And as far as I can tell, the general consensus has always been that that would never happen unless ReactOS crossed a certain threshold of popularity / usage. So really, nobody knows. Probably so far ReactOS is still so niche and small that even if MS thought they had grounds to pursue some sort of legal action, they just don't bother. Or maybe not: maybe MS have pored over the code meticulously, line by line, and determined that ReactOS don't infringe anything. In the end, there's really no easy way for those of us on the outside to know.

Anyway, does it even matter? If you want to use it, just use it. The chances that Microsoft would start pursuing individual end users of ReactOS - even in the worst case - strike me as approximately 0%. They can't even stop piracy of actual MS Windows, for crying out loud.

The one exception would be if you're thinking of building some sort of commercial product on top of ReactOS. There you might want to take a pause and do more research, since there is that chance that your very product - if successful enough - could become the "thing" that draws the attention of the Eye of Saur.. erm, Microsoft.

forgotpwd16
Checking the wiki page history, it was added after the reply Julliard send to Shefte in Jun 2022 (and why text is essentially identical). Similar to Shefte followup message, I was under the impression that there was a collaboration between the projects. Or at very least (Wine considered, although fully independent projects, upstream since ReactOS used parts of it), ReactOS code made its way to Wine.

From the IA link you provided, the full quote actually reinforces the previous.

>ReactOS (which aims at commercial usage too) can not directly utilize methods of development like dirty reverse engineering, and thus ReactOS can not share all code with the TinyKRNL project like we are sharing code with WINE.