Submitted by I’m not exactly a fan of reporting on Kickstarter projects, but I guess I can’t really ignore this one any longer.
Thorium Core is a commercial distribution of ReactOS, the Open Source Windows compatible operating system, targeted for cloud computing
Thorium Core is an attempt to build a commercial operating system and cloud services platform, based on ReactOS, which is an Open Source implementation of the NT architecture seen in modern versions of Windows.
It would seem that cloning Windows NT – in the end a neverending chase while wearing a stone around your neck and with your feet glued to a concrete block on Jupiter – is no longer a reasonable future goal. I kind of have my doubts about this project, but as always – major credit for trying.
It may be cheaper than real Windows, but is it penny wise, pound foolish?
Because I doubt they can get anywhere near the reliability of real Windows. If it turns out your application doesn´t work or starts to crash every weekend after 6 months of perfect excecution, can you ask your vendor to fix it? They´ll likely tell you to use Microsoft Windows instead.
If you can´t afford Windows you have to wonder if your business is going anywhere.
Just get applications that run on Linux.
You’re right.
Everybody, either pay up the MS tax or get lost!
Or……….. not.
Ya know I REALLY get sick of that “MS Tax” bullshit. The lifespan on Windows is TEN YEARS and the cost? Home is around $80, pro $130 and it has been for ages.
If you are so poor that $8 a year is too rich for your blood? Then frankly you shouldn’t be using Windows anyway as its doubtful you’ll be able to afford any programs for it. in that case you are welcome to learn Linux and save the $8, but to call $8 a year a “tax” for a full decade’s worth of patches and a couple service packs? Sorry but there is foolish and there is plain whacko, that falls into the latter in my book.
Usually, “MS Tax” refers to the situation where you cannot purchase a computer without Windows – even if you don’t ever plan to run Windows on it.
But how long ago has that been? The better part of a decade? there is a bazillion places that are HAPPY, downright ecstatic even, to sell you a Windows less laptop or desktop, in fact system76 and the like even have the windows key replaced by a little penguin! Dell has ubuntu, HP has Red Hat IIRC, they just about all have a Windows less option!
Now if you are complaining that you don’t get it for the same price as Windows versions? Then I’m sorry but you are being disingenuous as its quite common knowledge that OEMs get paid to put on trialware and they use that money to lower the cost of the PC. The trialware doesn’t run on Linux, hence no discount to the OEM, hence no discount to you.
So you can’t go out, buy a PC with its priced lowered by trialware and then complain that “you had to pay an M$ tax” when there are so many companies right now more than happy to let you have a PC that has never ever had windows on it because lets be real,okay? You bought it BECAUSE the trialware lowered the price, you took advantage of that, so if you want to complain about an “M$ tax”? Then you should contact the OEM, find out how much the trialware lowered the cost, and ask them to send you a bill for the difference.
A bazillion eh?
In any case, what I don’t understand is why I can’t buy the exact same machine without Windows. The big OEMs like Dell and HP sell only one or two models without Windows last I checked – and they were usually stripped-down versions.
As someone who repairs my own machines, even laptops, using either spare parts or aftermarket replacements (cheap replacement displays, etc.), I would have a far harder time finding replacement parts for a system76 machine than some run-of-the-mill HP laptop.
In any case, I generally don’t buy machines any more – I just wait for someone I know to throw away their old malware-infested windows machine and ask them to give it to me instead. I don’t need cutting edge hardware for my day-to-day usage, and neither does the rest of my family.
Edited 2014-01-24 02:58 UTC
So by your very own admission this affects you absolutely not one bit so why are you complaining? And as for why there is more models with windows? Because that is what more people buy, just as there is a million more styles of tablets with Android than with WinRT.
If people buy more cars than scooters you re gonna have more choices of cars, simple as that.
I’m not allowed to complain about something unless it affects me personally? By that same logic, I am not allowed to complain about human rights violations unless they affect me either?
Just because it doesn’t directly affect me (it indirectly affects me plenty, btw), doesn’t make it right. In fact in some countries forcing people to buy a copy of Windows with their PCs is likely illegal (or used to be, anyway). Bundling is one thing, not giving consumers the choice, is another.
So, you can pretty much go F yourself for that statement.
I’m getting sick of responding to people who believe the computing world is moving forward here instead of backward, so I’m not going to respond to the rest of this rubbish.
Yeah, not far from bazillion. And from major brands (Lenovo, Dell, HP, …): http://www.osnews.com/permalink?581838
Have you ever even asked for the option?
Actually, there are markets where there is hardly any trialware included in default installs (as far as I can tell, I haven’t done any thorough checking), and – most importantly – where Linux or “no OS” laptops are cheaper. And easy to find…
I just go to ceneo.pl (probably the largest PL comparator of online shops), pick “Laptops” (3640 overall at the moment), pick “Linux” & “no OS” and get over 600 results, from major brands:
http://www.ceneo.pl/Laptopy;017P8-250094-250095.htm
And that’s in PL of all places, can’t be that much harder in the rest of the EU at least…
So true that in fact I bought 4 OEM licenses, 1x 2000 Pro, 1x 2000 Pro + XP Pro (dual), 2x Win 7 Pro.
The problem is the new scheme of having a “new” version of Windows every two years.
Comparing Windows 2000 to 7 is to me only a cosmetic aspect, they could have maintained 2000, add Windows transparency (it does have it), better OpenGL support, hyperthreading support, new stuff and such.
Globally, Windows 2000 covers almost every of my needs.
Kochise
So, you aren’t using 64-bit?
You don’t want/need the security benefits that came after?
You aren’t benefiting at all from the major reorganization of the system internals in the form of MinWin, which not only increases stability and performance, but makes tracking down and patching security vulnerabilities that much faster?
You could do without the performance improvements that come with the better scheduler that is more aware of modern multi-threaded and multi-core processor design?
What about the virtual memory improvements that allow newer OpenGL and DirectX texturing features to be implemented efficiently?
Or, do you think you should get all these new things for free, because you spent $100 14 years ago?
Yeah, I don’t see where the problem is. Computers are still sold with their copy of Windows bundled to it.
Added security and stability, you mean Microsoft were discovering OS coding and dared to sell a half finished product ?
If your conception of software evolution is to pay for a security and bug ridden OS, then pay for its maintenance and bug fix, while you expected it to be “perfect” from day one.
Imagine buying a car, but it lack read doors, a safety wheel, brakes, etc then you have to buy a new car to get brakes, then a new car to get rear doors, then with metro they place the driver in the rear seat.
All of this in the name of evolution ?
What’s the big difference between Office 97 and 365 ? You can still write letters, why preventing to run Office 97 on new version of Windows if not to turn you into a cash cow ?
Kochise
The majority of Computers for domestic use are still sold with their copy of Windows bundled to it.
There fixed it for you.
I can buy Computers with or without Windows, usually without but it is possible. Only if you are lazy in this day and age do you have to buy a PC with windows pre-loaded.
Then purchase from companies that cater to your needs.
Your analogy doesn’t at all describe the situation with Windows you are complaining about. Your analogy is more a description of, say, buying Windows, but having to pay again for keyboard/mouse support
A more apt analogy would be you feel that the automaker should install, for free, a newly designed automatic parallel parking system into your 2001 Honda Civic.
When you purchased Windows XP 13 years ago, it was a known quantity, just as a 2001 Honda Civic was if you bought one 13 years ago. You are arguing that as technology improves after your purchase, all the engineering effort should be given to you after the fact, 13 years later.
If there are safety issues with your 2001 Civic – say, faulty door latch, the dealer is responsible for issuing recalls and repairing those faults – just as Microsoft has been patching and fixing bugs and security holes in XP for 14 years. But, you don’t get major design or feature changes for free – Honda doesn’t owe you a self-parking feature simply because new the new Prius has it.
You can still run Office ’97 under Windows 2000, no? This isn’t at all affected by newer versions of Windows or newer versions of Office. You don’t think it’s at all unreasonable to demand new features be given to you for a product you bought 15+ years ago?
Of course the comparison was biaised, updating a software is way easier than updating a car. So why having to buy again and again an operating system just to get the latest evolutions ? Why not buying evolution packs at bargain price ?
Kochise
Sad how parent comment gets upvoted higher than yours, just because it has some Windows bashing…
I have a new plan.
You and millions of others pay ME $8 a year, because, well, you’re too poor to exist if you can’t do it.
I’m off to live on the beaches! CYA SUCKER!
In some countries $130 is more than a months salary for a white collar worker.
There is a lot of free (as in no cost) and donated academic and technical software that only runs on Windows. This software is unlikely to ever be ported to Linux.
And whose fault is that? If enough people are willing to buy it then a Linux version will be made, if not? Well its not MSFT’s fault that people write software for their platform, anymore than its Torvalds.
BTW you aren’t being genuine, because the cost of Windows in the USA is NOT the cost of Windows in a country where $130 is a year’s salary, that is why they sell Windows Basic which now supports 64bit and last I checked 8GB of RAM so nothing “basic” about it.
Due to current software’s average requirement, this is now considered “basic”.
Kochise
Not arguing your point but as a sincere question,..
Is that really true nowadays?
I use my computer for software development, browsing, e-mailing, chatting, 3d modeling, consuming media etc. Usually all at the same time. I only have 2GB of memory (less on my laptop) and have never ran out. (Which I would know because I was too lazy to create a swap partition.)
Or our there some mammoth programs that I don’t know about?
Eclipse (Juno or Kepler) : start it -> 700 MB reserved
Lync : start it -> 120 MB used (it’s just a chat program)
Internet Explorer : each tab -> 100 MB
…
Kochise
Edited 2014-01-23 15:21 UTC
I’m going to hazard a guess that the poster you’re replying to is not using Windows, but some flavor of *nix. Windows doesn’t typically use a swap partition (auto-generating a pagefile instead) and *nix programs are often much less ram-intensive than those in Windows. I can run a *nix desktop of choice quite comfortably in 2 gb of ram sans swap (save OS X which is severely bloated these days), but if you do that with Windows you’ll quickly hit the limit of your ram without a pagefile.
Not to mention that we ARE talking about Windows Basic, which the previous poster complained that the cost of Windows Pro “is what some people make in a year” and I got modded down for daring to point out..
1.-There IS a version for third world markets, 2.- it supports the latest 64bit CPUs as well as 32bit CPUs, 3.- it supports 8Gb of RAM.
So I want to see somebody here put up or shut up, show me a place where $130 is the yearly salary that they are buying computers with better specs than Windows basic handles, because I honestly think they are full of it. Hell I play the latest FPS games and I have 8GB of RAM and have yet to hit the halfway mark on my RAM, so I seriously doubt anybody in a country with a yearly salary of $130 is gonna come up with a machine more powerful than what Windows basic supports.
Oh and BTW Windows basic? last I checked it sells for as little as $5 USD as its priced based on the market so its not like its expensive. Again if you can’t afford Windows you probably can’t afford the software for it either and Linux is free, but the fact that some here actually have the gall to complain that $8 a year is too high? Frankly ridiculous as I bet most of you spend more than that on fast food in a single outing, so to say that is too high for ten years worth of support? Kinda going past legitimate arguments into trolling.
I have yet to see one with a pro version.
I have yet to see Windows Basic Package sold(not bundled with a netbook)
A monthly salary perhaps, not yearly. If there is a packaged Windows 8 Basic, I can easily afford it if it is only $5. My estimates, but not far from the actual cost: Windows Home Basic I think is $50-$60, Windows Home Premium to be $100, very expensive relative to our monthly salary.
You are correct, but I think it is monthly not yearly salary. $130 is too low a yearly salary even for the so-called third world countries.
Again, I have yet to see a package of Windows 8 Basic, or Windows 7 Basic. What’s on the market are netbooks/notebooks bundled with Windows Basic. Windows “HOME” Basic and Windows “HOME PREMIUM” basic which are more expensive than what you described as $5. In Philippine peso it is 200+. I have yet to see a packaged Windows basic with this price tag. If you’re into business, you need a pro license with the price range of $160 to $200 in our country, a supposedly third world country.
The prices you put are totally misleading!
$130 for a pro version is OEM, that is, the license will going to die with the machine, so you need another $130 > $200 if your computer hardware will stop working. Most desktop yesteryears have a lifespan of 3 years, now it is going to take a long time at least up to 7 years(same reason why PC sales is declining). So in the lifespan of Windows for 10 years you need to pay for it two to three times. Unless you are willing to pay for the premium FPP which is I think more than 300% more expensive than the OEM version.
The price isn’t so low when transferred to other currencies (as a rule of thumb, remember that “luxury” products are more expensive in absolute amounts, not less, the more impoverished a given place is)
That said, “MS Tax” is largely BS…
It’s not about, “I can’t afford Windows!” It’s about machines that can’t run Windows 7, or applications that are XP compatible, but won’t run under Vista or above.
Last time I tried ReactOs, it couldn’t run any of my win 98, win 2k, or win xp programs. I’ll give it another whirl soon as it would be awesome if it did. I don’t really expect it to, but its always fun to try. As others have said, its a really difficult thing they are trying to do, regardless of what you think their goal actually is.
Even more difficult considering that it’s not enough to simply implement the Windows APIs. They’re also going to have to recreate each and every bug in those APIs be they in the kernel, libraries, or UI. So many applications in Windows, including Microsoft’s own, rely on undocumented bugs and shortcuts in the various Windows APIs that no amount of implementing the documented standard is going to get them close to a working Windows replacement.
Yeah, it’s funny reading some of the MS developer perspectives on Windows history. There are a lot of historic bugs that they simply cannot fix, because defective or not, that bug has become a defacto part of their APIs, because fixing it would break third-party applications. So anyone trying to replicate the Windows APIs has to do the same…
What machines would those be exactly? because here at the shop I’ve got to try Win 7 on just about every piece of kit that will still be even slightly usable and haven’t had any troubles running it yet.
for examples…socket 758 sempron 1.8Ghz, we are talking eleven year old hardware here, with 1Gb of RAM and an 80Gb IDE drive? Ran Windows 7 just fine, in fact the only hang ups involved websites with bloated code like FB. Socket 478 Intel Celeron 2Ghz, this is a SERIOUSLY gimped chip as losing the cache on the P4 crippled the hell out of Netburst, again paired with 1gb of RAM which frankly any board past 2002 ought to be able to support? Ran just fine after the Celery had time to load to desktop. what can I say, the netburst was a dog and the Celery netburst a lame dog but that is true no matter what OS you ran.
So I really don’t know what systems you are talking about as the few i found which actually couldn’t run Win 7? Were frankly so damned old you honestly wouldn’t want to keep them anyway. as for programs? Considering I had to talk to many of these companies when my customers switched a LOT, a damned lot of them IMHO, purposely withheld support to try to make you buy a new version for quite a bit of cash. the one that first comes to mind is Quickbooks where they had coded the XP version to run ONLY if you have Flash 7 (badly out of date even when it was released) and talking to reps they made it clear they considered shelling out hundreds for a new version as a “fix” for their own shitty coding.
If that is the case with you? There are several programs that will let you run XP as a VM and you get the benefits, 10 years of support, better memory and CPU management, and better security, without being trapped on an older version because some critical app just won’t run.
The goal of ReactOS is to provide an open-source OS that can use Windows device drivers. (eg. for niche or custom hardware where porting the drivers to Linux isn’t feasible)
Companies that want to ditch Windows but can’t justify the cost of completely rewriting some in-house solution (for which source code may no longer be available) already have Codeweavers’s “We’ll port your binary application to Linux by preparing a professionally-supported custom build of Wine” service.
What are the chances of having a PC needing an older version of Windows because it needs drives for some exotic devices AND the PC can´t be isolated from outside threats?
Probably there are a few, but not many. This leaves to wonder how much commercial success this commercial company can achieve.
We have a computer that controls ancient hardware, but the only remote access to it is done via a modem. Microsoft may drop support for it, but it´s not updated anyway.
I wonder if they are doing this because it´s fun to do or if they did a study to see how many potential customers are out there.
That’s not the main reason, many people consider the Windows NT design to be very good and want it available as an Open Source[tm] version. That’s the kernel and lower levels – I don’t think there’s anyone that likes Win32…
Interesting, I never thought about it this way before but it makes a lot of sense. People who love the BeOS wanted to make the open source Haiku operating system, and people who love the Windows NT design want to make the open source ReactOS. I just never realized that there are people who love Windows NT.
Having spent nearly 2 decades now using Windows NT (started with NT 3.1) – I actually think it started out as a pretty decent kernel/OS…
For me, the high point was probably Win2k – since then the user interface hasn’t really improved that much for me, but I use Windows 7 daily on my work laptop and my personal workstation at home and find it pretty decent.
When (if?) ReactOS ever reaches parity with something like Win2k as far as functionality and application support, I might take a seriously take another look at it – assuming it had modern hardware support of course.
The problem with Win2k is that Microsoft eventually ended support for it, and it’s therefore not secure. As a result, nobody still supports it as a target platform for applications. If ReactOS can provide a Win2k-like interface with WinXP software compatibility, I think they’ll have something that people can (and will) use. The open source aspect of it makes all the difference I think.
It’s not unusual or strange to like Windows NT. Even if you don’t like the userspace, you have to admit that the kernel underneath is well-designed and reliable (and dare I say, better than Unix).
Better than *which* Unix kernel? Because there are quite a few to choose from…
I suspect he means UNIX in general. I’m on the fence myself: *NIX “everything is a file” and the POSIX API’s are really very elegant, but the NT object orientated approach and stuff like WaitForMultipleObjects are really freaking cool.
There is an article in the internet posted many years ago regarding the defense of the NT kernel, I can’t remember and can’t recall the keyword to type to help google search. Not really into this subject of kernel dev, since its a very difficult subject, but somehow love to read them.
This one I found was written by Andrew S. Tanenbaum, but just an overview of the NT kernel.
http://www.johnloomis.org/ece314/notes/OperatingSystems/WindowsNT.h…
In reality, if you look at a modern Linux desktop.
There are thinks like netlink and dbus. The last one will soon be built into the Linux kernel and called kdbus.
Basically, Unix/Linux people use ‘everything is a file'(descriptor) where it makes sense and do something else if it doesn’t.
Windows always seems to go with a complicated solution. Which most of the time turns out hard to extend to fit new use cases.
I prefer the simple first, complicated where/when needed approach that Unix/Linux takes.
What I think it´s interesting about Thorium is
1) Control: You can have custom builds tailored to your needs.
2)Embeded and virtualized systems. You can use far fewer resources. A Windows 7 installation requires more than 10 Gigabytes. If you have servers running tens or hundreds of virtual machines you can save a lot of space in hard drives. You can build your embeded system with fewer resources.
You might underestimate the effect of licensing on the prices offered by a cloud provider.
I think what’s more important is reliability and what you get for your money.
If it’s cheaper, but not reliable it’s basically worthless.
People tend to focus a lot on the prices, but not what you get for it.
This Thorium and ReactOS stuff sounds very interesting, but will work as a commercial offering? Then it needs to be reliable. If your system keeps going down customers will just move on to the competition.
This company springs from the ReactOS developers.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they (will) have a service where they validate the application for running on ReactOS.
Also, what they could end up doing is supporting applications that currently run on older versions that Microsoft does not support anymore. Like Windows XP.
Edited 2014-01-24 11:14 UTC
I hope they do, but will that be 100% and what happens if the software vendor submits a software update?
When you use Windows or Linux there are a lot of recourses you can access for help and assistance. With ReactOS this pool is a lot small and they’re probably the only real source of help. What if they call or have to call it quits?
I have nothing against them and hope they’ll do well, but if I were to think about using their services I believe I’d be taking a very large risk and I’d have to wonder if spending the extra money on real Windows wouldn’t be money wise spend to get rid of the risks and uncertainties.
“What if they call or have to call it quits?”
You go to an other provider and pay them for their service. Probably based on ‘real Windows’. You might have to pay more.
I don’t care what the goal is, but wouldn’t be nice to have an alternative to MS Windows that can run all the software Windows can run?
Wouldn’t be nice if that said alternative would be Metro Free?
Also, wouldn’t be nice if that system would be cheaper or even free?
That’s a great start.
Now for the thing to be useful we need similarly assured and verified apps, libraries, runtimes and compilers.
A web application framework would be really handy for facing the wild internet.
I don’t even want to think about the number of software patents that apply to the NT kernel alone, let alone the rest of the stack. As an open source project there wasn’t much, realistically, Microsoft could do and since ReactOS itself couldn’t come close to replacing Windows anyway they didn’t care. Should this commercial project ever become more than promises however, Microsoft is going to bring out the big guns in hopes of scoring a quick kill. They won’t be able to do so everywhere, of course, as many countries are sane and have no software patents, but in the ones that do you can bet they’re going to fight if they feel the least bit threatened.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReactOS#Internal_audit
Curiously, there *were* details on this page before about Microsoft’s involvement in trying to squash the project. Those details are all gone now…
NT was started in 1988. This means that many (perhaps the vast majority) of the patents involving the kernel have already expired. Many of the stack patents would also have expired.
They can play it dirty like Walt Disney that lobbied to extend copyright to 140 years after the author’s death.
Kochise
MSFT gets more money from Android installs than WinPhone thanks to the FAT32 patents so betting your business on the hopes that all the relevant patents have expired? Probably not the best move.
This is gonna be a serious problem IMHO when it comes to trying to take these smaller FOSS projects commercial, in that the patent warchests of companies like Apple and MSFT could keep you tied up in court for the better part of a decade. Could ReactOS afford those kinds of lawyers fees? probably not.
I have been arguing for years that the court system needs a complete overhaul because it currently gives such an extreme advantage to the rich (and the state) that it might as well be rigged, because they have virtually unlimited cash and you don’t they can bury you in motions and counter motions and one expert witness after another that its like your local HS soccer team trying to compete with the world cup players, it would be laughable how tilted it is if it weren’t so depressing.
This company built around ReactOS is in Russia.
Their ‘cloud’ is probably also in Russia.
Russia isn’t the same as the US. This could be an advantage for them or not. It’s mostly just different. 😉
This company is in Russia.
Going to court won’t help much. Software patents probably don’t apply and I don’t think they care much about copyright either in Russia.
The ReactOS concept is something I think should be supported. I don’t have any practical uses for it (especially commercial ones) but an open nt operating system wouldn’t be a bad thing.