Open Source XP

[sparkeh]

Meh. Just install Linux for the win.

[Samson]

Saw this a while back, definately an interesting idea, but look at the amount of devlopers and coders worldwide are chipping in to keep the *nix open source train rolling... I bet this doesn't even have a fraction of the manpower to make it big.

[Theblacksheep]

Works fine in VM-workstation 6.5, nice!

[matt40k]

Looks more like 3.11 with a win 95 face lift

[tmcd35]

It is a good idea. Open Source Windows. If a community built up around it like Linux then it could be a very viable alternative to paying money out, and you'd imagine bugs being fixed quicker.

The problem is it's been pre-alpha for neigh on a decade. I think when I first saw this it was supposed to be a Windows 95 replacement! Their problem, and the reason why M$ doesn't need to sue them, is that M$ just keep moving the goal posts. They've done very well to start getting towards a Windows 2000 replacement, problem is XP is gone, Vista is dying and Windows 7 will be old before they can claim solid XP support!

[CyberNerd]

MS can't Open Source Windows because their code is such bloated sh*t that it would cause them endless embarrassment.

[Face-Man]

why reinvent a square wheel... If people want xp for free they steal it. If they want a os for free they use linux. If you need someone to blame you use M$ os

[tmcd35]

I think the point is that people won't need to steal XP. Also it is a ground up re-write so (in theory) should be faster with less code bloat. And being an open source community one would expect bugs to be fixed quicker.

As I said above, their problem is the moving goal post that is M$ Windows. ReactOS currently does not support even 50% of the win32 API. The problem is that M$ are replacing win32 with .net and their are three different version of that!

ReactOS's website's stance on this is "We plan to port mono (Linux .net port) to ReactOs at some point in the future". By which point .net will be replaced by a common web API running across multiple platforms and the need for this type of project will be gone.

[jamesb]

Originally Posted by tmcd35

I think the point is that people won't need to steal XP. Also it is a ground up re-write so (in theory) should be faster with less code bloat. And being an open source community one would expect bugs to be fixed quicker.

Now that would be a surprise. Why would bugs be fixed faster with a small, unpaid, non-professional open source community working in their spare time instead of a dedicated team?

As I said above, their problem is the moving goal post that is M$ Windows. ReactOS currently does not support even 50% of the win32 API. The problem is that M$ are replacing win32 with .net and their are three different version of that!

If they can't keep up with Microsoft's dev cycle, I'd be very surprised if there was any effective response on bugs.

Its a shame because it would be a great tool to have for development and testing, as well as troubleshooting. I just can't see it happening in any useful amount of time.

[CyberNerd]

I don't begrudge their cause, but I think their time would be better spent helping develop mono , wine, or even working on better platform independent applications. If either of these goals were realised there would be no need for XP, opensource or not.

[sparkeh]

Originally Posted by jamesb

Now that would be a surprise. Why would bugs be fixed faster with a small, unpaid, non-professional open source community working in their spare time instead of a dedicated team?

Really? Ask the communities of Ubuntu, openSuse, Fedora etcetera is if this is true.
It depends on the size of the community and number of eyes checking the code. Bug fixing is reputedly very good on popular open source software.
You could argue that companies trying to make money are only going to be interested in fixing the bugs that are profitable in cost vs effort to fix. The models are different but both can work or fail depending on the people/company involved.

Originally Posted by CyberNerd

I think their time would be better spent helping develop mono , wine, or even working on better platform independent applications. If either of these goals were realised there would be no need for XP, opensource or not.

Hear hear!
If the future develops the way certain parties want to, we will all be using browsers for web apps anyway so browser will be king and the platform less important. Loads of browsers are cross platform as it is.

[jamesb]

Originally Posted by sparkeh

Really? Ask the communities of Ubuntu, openSuse, Fedora etcetera is if this is true.
It depends on the size of the community and number of eyes checking the code. Bug fixing is reputedly very good on popular open source software.
You could argue that companies trying to make money are only going to be interested in fixing the bugs that are profitable in cost vs effort to fix. The models are different but both can work or fail depending on the people/company involved.

I've found in my own experience, which admittedly has a main focus on commercial software rather than open source, bugs I encounter in a for-profit solution tend to be fixed a lot faster than those in open-source.

Generally the times when I've had to try and get bugs fixed in Linux after encountering them tend to involve having to recompile things, write code, or mess around for a while with configuration rather than just running automatic updates.

As I said though, my experience is mainly with commercial software.

Hear hear!
If the future develops the way certain parties want to, we will all be using browsers for web apps anyway so browser will be king and the platform less important. Loads of browsers are cross platform as it is.

Back to the good old days of mainframes. Gonna be fun for server admins.