Comments on XenStreet: ReactOS - Open Source Windows

ReactOS aims to be NT (NT4, XP, 2003) compatible....

2009-01-11T08:38:00.000-08:00

ReactOS aims to be NT (NT4, XP, 2003) compatible. It is not aimed at older hardware, and aims to be a free equal replacement for Windows. It is not suitable for every day use yet & is very much in Alpha.
Not everyone needs just a *nix OS. ReactOS will allow ppl needing to run Windows, whether virtually or otherwise, to have a free oss option.

I tried using ReactOS. Many of my programs crashe...

2009-01-09T09:12:00.000-08:00

I tried using ReactOS. Many of my programs crashed, a lot. Apparently MS has a lot of undocumented bugs / features that are hard to pick apart and reimplement. I wouldn't say it's usable yet, but they have a great vision. I hope it gets there, some day.

Unix and Wine makes more sense to me, I say Unix b...

2009-01-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

Unix and Wine makes more sense to me, I say Unix because Wine runs on BSD, OpenSolaris, and OSX as well. With support options I see allot of people choosing Unix and Wine in the future.

The audit was to check that people hadn't lifted c...

2009-01-08T23:45:00.000-08:00

The audit was to check that people hadn't lifted code from MS code that was leaked onto the Internet.

ReactOS does benefit from WINE, all the changes to Windows DLLs done in Wine are ported across to ReactOS. I'm not sure how much goes the other way though.

I don't think I'm as excited as you about people using ReactOS instead of pirating, but if that exposes them to FOSS its a good thing. Wine provides the same legacy application benefit to these users.

But its a cool project and hacking is about having fun.

This project is tied to wine. I believe it is one ...

2009-01-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

This project is tied to wine. I believe it is one or more developers from the wine project. I think it is a cool idea and if I remember correctly ReactOS did an internal audit to make sure they were not infringing on any known MS patents.

This is a pretty old project. It is still in progr...

2009-01-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

This is a pretty old project. It is still in progress thought.

The OS has been in development for a long time.

2009-01-08T09:45:00.000-08:00

The OS has been in development for a long time.

I really can't see why this project is born, if no...

2009-01-08T09:10:00.000-08:00

I really can't see why this project is born, if not for pure fun. Then I support it. Otherwise, there is no point.

Losing a user to Linux is much worse to MS, then p...

2009-01-07T22:29:00.000-08:00

Losing a user to Linux is much worse to MS, then pirating. Because the user with the illegal copy, may eventually purchase a license or pay the so-called "MS tax". But if he switches to Linux, they have lost him forever and he/she will probably convert more users to Linux. Look at netbooks; they dropped the price of XP to profound levels and would even give it for free (until netbooks are fast enough to run Vista), to avoid losing users to Linux.