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Home , GNU TeXmacs, ReactOS, Thomas Bushnell

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An up-to-date overview of free software and its makers Projects on the Free software covers such a diverse range of utilities, applications and other assorted projects, that it can be hard to the perfect tool from all that programming effort.We pick the best of the bunch for you. In this issue:The Windows NT ReactOS, Software in the Public Ro

Interest and trouble GNU Hurd. visipix.com nald Raefle,

BY MARTIN LOSCHWITZ

his issue looks at the ReactOS developers aim to provide a large range concentrate on a Windows NT clone. which looks set of interfaces for various . For exam- FreeWin95 became ReactOS. They also Tto become a major con- ple, there are moves to support the direct reached another fundamental decision: tender. We will also be looking into execution of Java programs. In addition, to concentrate on creating working code, “Software in the Public Interest” and subsystems for OS/2 and DOS programs rather than those endless discussions. reporting on the ousting of the Hurd are planned. After this, ReactOS went quiet for a maintainer, . The ReactOS project now has a tar whole year. Not because the team mem- archive with the operating system kernel bers had broken their resolutions, but ReactOS sources, and ISO images, on its website, because they were all heavily involved in users occasionally need to run but it hasn’t been easy going. The pro- creating a kernel and a set of major dri- Windows programs on Linux. In this ject’s predecessor was launched way vers. As Linus Torvalds describes in his case, most users opt for commercial tools back in 1996 with the aim of program- book “Just for Fun” [4], this can be an such as VMware [1], which emulates a ming a free clone. The extremely tedious and fairly boring computer with a BIOS of its own, or the project’s initiators called it FreeWin95 to . What made things even free [2] software, although Wine reflect their goal. Their ambitions at the difficult was the fact that only a few of may not run the Windows programs you were to make the project multifunc- the developers in the ReactOS group need. tional and well-known. But that was not actually knew how to design kernel The ReactOS [3] operating system pro- to be. Kernel code was never produced. code. This meant that the first lines of vides a completely new approach to this Instead, the project members got bogged ReactOS code were the work of just a issue. The idea is to create an operating down in tedious discussions on the oper- few . The kernel hacker system with binary and driver com- ating system design. By the end of 1997, group started growing after support for patibility to Windows NT 4.0. The FreeWin95 was more or less dead. basic hardware such as IDE controllers Jason Filby agreed to become the new and keyboards became available. Martin Loschwitz is from a small Ger- project co-ordinator. He immediately A port of the GNU compiler collection man town called Niederkrüchten and contacted all the members of the is one of the biggest success stories in the HOR

T a developer for GNU/Linux. FreeWin95 mailing list with the aim of of ReactOS development. This Martin’s leisure time is mainly pre- instilling new life into the project. The makes it possible to compile new - occupied with activities in the Debian developers agreed to cancel their plans sions of ReactOS on ReactOS. ReactOS or GNU community. THE AU for a Window 95 derivative and instead also supports a few well-known Linux

www.linux-magazine.com March 2004 87 COMMUNITY Free Software Projects

programs, being tions, but it does not check for the exis- Bruce Perens finally had the charters for one of the more prominent examples. tence of data on these partitions. There Software in the Public Interest, or SPI for One or two minor Windows programs is some danger of data loss if you acci- short, completed by June 10 1997 (see also run on ReactOS. As Figure 1 shows, dentally choose the wrong partition. If Figure 2). In 1999 the USA Internal Rev- we managed to launch the Windows 2000 you prefer to read a detailed installation enue Service [6] finally recognized SPI as calculator with the of a shell32.dll guide before you , the ReactOS a “not-for-profit” organization, which is borrowed from the WINE project. download page provides a link. not subject to tax on income (including The roadmap the project has laid out ReactOS is an extremely interesting donations). makes you want more. A functional - approach to combining the advantages There are two ways to run an organi- work interface is due in April. There is of free software with Windows pro- zation of this kind in the US. The some network code available, but the grams. If ReactOS 2005 is only half as founders can decide against opening up code is unusable due to large gaps in functional as the developers suggest in membership to the general public; the some places. Also, the GUI should be their roadmap, it will certainly be an organization will then comprise a fixed available shortly – it will include pro- interesting new alternative on the desk- group of persons. The board of an orga- grams such as a , an top front. nization of this can still agree to Explorer, and a calculator. More mile- accept new members. This type of orga- stones are planned for the fall: Open Software in the nization is typically chosen when there is Office, Mozilla, and DirectX should Public Interest a defined goal and the organization will work, and the kernel should be capable Most free software projects, such as be disbanded after achieving that goal. of supporting USB and NTFS. It will be Debian, have a fundamental problem: The second type of public interest interesting to see if ReactOS finally man- they are not legal entities. This means organization is open to the general pub- ages to code a free NTFS implementation they cannot issue tax-deductible receipts lic. It has to allow anyone so wishing to capable of reading and writing. The aim for donations, although a receipt is a join, although it can define different lev- is to have ReactOS generally usable as a major prerequisite for many potential els of membership. The members hold desktop platform by early 2005. donors. periodic elections to elect the board or If you want to try out ReactOS, check The people behind the Debian project change the statutes. SPI is an organiza- [5] for the tools. But be aware of the cur- realized this back in 1997, and this led tion of this type. rent obstacles: ReactOS will only install them to found a non-profit organization SPI distinguishes between two types of on FAT16 and FAT32 partitions. The thus avoiding taxation. The Debian pro- members: anyone who agrees to uphold setup program can FAT32 parti- ject leaders at that time, spearheaded by the principles of SPI, and registers with SPI, can become a “non-contributing” member. In contrast to this, “contribut- ing” members are required to prove their active participation in a project sup- ported by SPI. “Contributing” members regularly elect new members to the “Board of Directors”. And the board votes for a President once a year. The general intention of SPI is to sup- port free software globally. Free software projects can apply to SPI to become officially supported projects. Once the application has been approved, the project can apply for sponsorship or legal aid. The other aims of Software in the Pub- lic Interest are to promote the public distribution of software and support school involvement on the Internet. This includes events designed to show users how to draw maximum benefit from the Internet. The projects SPI supports, besides Debian, are the Fresco graphics system [7], Gnome [8], Linux Standard Base [9], Figure 1: As the website of the ReactOS Windows NT clone demonstrates: the Windows 2000 calculator the OFTC IRC network [10], the Open runs on ReactOS with the WINE shell32.dll.ReactOS will be able to run Linux programs, and Java code Source Initiative [11] and the GNU Tex- directly. macs Editor [12]. If you want to help SPI

88 March 2004 www.linux-magazine.com Free Software Projects COMMUNITY

The developer and maintainer of Hurd, Thomas Bushnell, is one of the FDL’s critics, and this was his down- fall just recently. Stallman dismissed Bushnell as maintainer for criticizing the FDL too often and too openly. This was seen as unacceptable for a representative of the GNU project. Imme- diately after this news broke, there were fierce reactions from the developer community. Even Werner Koch, well- known for GnuPG, criticized Stallman’s approach. He failed to understand how a community that propagates “freedom as in free speech” could withdraw its sup- port for a person simply for using this right. Stallman is unlikely to reconsider his decision, although the GNU FDL is fairly certain to continue to provide material for controversial discussions. That’s all folks… … for this month at least, but we do Figure 2: Charters of the not-for-profit organization Software in the Public Interest (SPI). SPI is one of the have one request before we go: If you biggest organizations actively involved in supporting free software. In 1999, SPI was recognized as a can recommend a program that you charity and exempted from income tax. would like to see featured in Projects on the Move, why not mail me with your and the projects it supports, you can The GPL has a free documentation suggestion [14]? I look forward to your now donate online at [13]. counterpart known as the Free Docu- comments! ■ mentation License (FDL), which is quite Trouble at Hurd controversial on the scene. INFO People often say that It contains paragraphs that allow authors [1] VMware:http://www.vmware.com/ does not get on too well with Linus Tor- to add passages with non-technical con- [2] Wine:http://www.winehq.org/ valds. After Stallman completed the first tent that cannot be changed by later GNU tools, Torvalds released the first editors. For many developers the FDL [3] ReactOS:http://www.reactos.com/ Linux versions, and thus indirectly thus constitures a license that is clearly [4] Linus Torvalds and David Diamond, inherited the success of the GNU tools. not free. “Just For Fun:The Story of an Accidental Richard Stallman probably had a differ- Revolutionary”,ISBN:1587991519 ent plot in mind for his programs. They [5] ReactOS-Tools:http://www.reactos.com/ were intended for release with the GNU content/view/full/62 operating system Hurd, and were to [6] USA Internal Revenue Service: mark the victory of Open Source. http://www.irs.gov/ This is ten-year-old history by now, [7] Fresco:http://www.fresco.org/ and Hurd has more or less detoriorated [8] Gnome:http://www.gnome.org/ to vaporware. Release 1.0 has been post- [9] Linux Standard Base:http://www.lsb.org/ poned numerous times by the [10]Open and Free Technology Community: developers. Hurd is not state-of-the-art. http://www.oftc.net/ Current versions cannot efficiently use [11] Open Source Initiative: hard disks with 160 GBytes or more, as http://www.opensource.org/ the faulty system design prevents Hurd [12] GNU Texmacs:http://www.gnu.org/ from handling filesystems of more than a directory/GNU/GNUTeXmacs. few GBytes. Hurd also fails to support [13] Donations to SPI:http://www.guidestar. modern soundcards. Historians can now org/partners/networkforgood/donate. open a new chapter in the continuing Figure 3: Richard Stallman is well-known for his jsp?ein=11-3390208 story of Hurd. But this time history extreme views. A short while ago, he ousted Hurd [14] Tips and suggestions: relates a tale of differing philosophies maintainer Thomas Bushnell for criticizing the [email protected] rather than technical aspects. GNU Free Documentation License.

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