[kmote]

Well I'm pretty sure you wouldn't need to reverse engineer anything. Wine managed, and if you think about it compilers do a similar thing but in reverse. Surely if it were illegal, then every non-microsoft compiler that compiles exes would be illegal.

[Mak213]

You are going to indepth. Compilers are even used by Microsoft. That is not my point. The point is that a exe file is more than just something that runs a program. It island also a installer and more. With some programs it does require acess to parts of the OS that would have to be reversed engineered.

Vista and Win7 use a different Registry system, along with Dx10/Dx11. To fully utilize every aspect f say the Pheonix Game Engine would require reverse engineering of some of windows. But to just emulate the registry to run say Safari then you wouldnt have to reverse engineer anything.

Which/is exactly why i said depending on what they were doing it might require reverse engineering.I did not say that doing it would be illegal, i said that if they had to reverse engineer it would be at that point. Which is.true.

Without knowing what programs they are planning to try and make work, it is good to know that info up front. Instead of after.

[up-smash]

I was thinking along the lines of a open source operating system being able to do everything a Windows operating system can do. For the purposes of gaming where the resources can be allocated more efficiently since there are less places for it to be allocated to. Although I'm a nub programmer I wouldn't know what i'm talking about anyway and I'm sure there are more comments to come.

[Mak213]

Again as i have previously said, it would be illegal. Almost all games for Windows use DirectX. That is a proprietary technology. It is developed by Microsoft. So to get it working just like it would in Windows, would require you to reverse engineer the technology.

To make the .msi format to work would require reverse engineering as that is a Window sonly format now. All of those things are illegal as per the EULA.

Open Source OS's are advancing, but they will never be able to do what Windows does flawlessly. At some point in the process they would have to reverse engineer, or "borrow" something that Microsoft has implemented to get it working and at that point it would be illegal. Even those open source projects like ReactOS and Haiku are having major issues. As they have to develop their own drivers. Which is why those projects only work with very limited hardware.

In the end it comes down to the simple fact, it wont ever be able to do what Windows does legally. There is much more that goes on with the OS than any of us know. To get everything working from the GUI down to teh Kernel access would require reverse engineering at some point and at that point it would be illegal. No way you will be able to figure it out without it.

[up-smash]

k
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