Open Source XP

[jamesb]

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.

[6Foot2]

For information: ReactOS version 0.3.12 released

 

Link 1: Frontpage - ReactOS Website

 

Please bear in mind that ReactOS 0.3.12 is still in alpha stage, meaning it is not feature-complete and is not recommended for everyday use.

 

Link 2: Screenshots - ReactOS Website [Lots of screen shots of ReactOS in action]

[Jawloms]

They're still working on it! - BBC News - Russian President Medvedev asked to fund Windows clone

[mac_shinobi]

read my edit. It just didn't like VirtualBox, fine with VirtualPC

 

Not bothered enough to try it on a real machine, just wanted a nose,

 

Download - ReactOS Website

 

The download page has different versions , one for virtual box , vmware etc etc

[CAM]

This is a pretty old piece of software that has been in development for a very very long time. Maybe we will see some movement if Russia does bankroll the development team but would we then be looking at an Operating System owned by a country? Would that impact US adoption of ReactOS?

[SYNACK]

Signifigant Russian government involvement in it would turn it into RuskieOS in the eyes of many, rightly or wrongly and so the mere politics would inhibit its uptake in certain areas.

[Miscbrah]

Holy necropost Batman!

 

But Reactos is still going strong and looks VERY exciting.

 

And by exciting I mean broken.

 

And by broken I mean new features come along with every release, which are a bit broken BUT the older ones get a little bit less broken. Boots MEGA fast too.

 

Anyway I for one am excited and have donated a couple of times. Can't wait to see it 'out there'

[tmcd35]

Weeellll, If we are going to raise the dead...

 

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.

 

I'd like to claim credit for predicting HTML5 four years ago! What with ChromeOS, FireFox OS, even Windows 8 support as an official development API in WinRT, iOS denouncing Macromedia Flash, and the whole cloud computing revolution.

 

For my next prediction - In four years time Windows 9 will be released and the tiled start screen will be scrapped in favour of a full screen IE14 experience...

[6Foot2]

Reviving this old post again:

 

Link: Google Summer of Code 2016: ReactOS

 

...Your idea!

 

We are eager to hear about your proposal to improve either ReactOS or its infrastructure. Come and propose your project on ReactOS developers mailing-list or on IRC, to get a feedback about its feasability. If your project is doable, we will be glad to provide you a mentor so that you can succeed in your project.

 

Don't forget that ReactOS is a big project and application fields are wide. You can choose between user-mode, kernel-mode developer. But also between application, or dll/driver developer. Or between working on ReactOS itself or on extra tools used by developers for their daily work on ReactOS. And in the end, if all you prefer is web development, we also have needs there...

[Arthur]

my next prediction - In four years time Windows 9 will be released and the tiled start screen will be scrapped in favour of a full screen IE14 experience...

Your prediction didn't come true this time.

[unixman_again]

One to watch!

 

I've been watching ReactOS since 1998 when it was a W95 clone. It worked quite well although I just ran W98 in a v/m on my work XP box. I even booted the vm from a floppy and used a W98 CD to install it. Took 21 hours! It would have been much quicker if I had copied the ISO to disk but hey ho!

[Trapper]

Are they still doing this? It's been around for years, they had to stop for a long time when they found someone hadn't so much reverse engineered Microsoft, as copied parts of the code base verbatim from a source leak.

[6Foot2]

Link: ReactOS 0.4.1 Released

[6Foot2]

Link: ReactOS 0.4.2 Released

[6Foot2]

Link: ReactOS 0.4.6 released

[DJ-1701]

ReactOS 0.4.7 released (20171206)

 

Next version expected March.

[Dos_Box]

Holy carp! This thread is like Brigadoon!

[jmak]

 

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!

 

Someone was spot on [emoji122]

[Arthur]

ReactOS 0.4.7 released (20171206)

 

Next version expected March.

ReactOS now supports applications created for Vista (and newer)!

 

ReactOS 0.4.8 released

 

The ReactOS Project is pleased to announce the release of version 0.4.8 as we continue to work on releasing every three months.

 

As you may know, our previous 0.4.7 version was the first one developed in our Git/GitHub repository. 0.4.8 is the nice sequel and a good way to measure the GitHub impact on the ReactOS project. Since ReactOS reached GitHub, it has been forked 248 times. A nice amount understanding ReactOS is not a framework or a library, but a final product. These forks represent a nice amount of newcomers: translators, designers, coders and testers. Thanks to all of them, and the ReactOS regular devs, 209 new Pull Requests and 1094 commits have made it through to this 0.4.8 version.

 

[...]

 

NT6+ Software support and Games

With software specifically leaving NT5 behind, ReactOS is expanding its target to support NT6+ (Vista, Windows 8, Windows 10) software. Colin, Giannis and Mark are creating the needed logic in NTDLL and LDR for this purpose. Giannis has finished the side-by-side support and the implicit activation context, Colin has changed Kernel32 to accept software made for NT6+, and Mark keeps working on the shim compatibility layer. Although in a really greenish and experimental state, the new additions in 0.4.8 should start helping several software pieces created for Vista and upwards to start working in ReactOS. Microsoft coined the term backwards compatibility, ReactOS the forward compatibility one.

[azc]

Seen these claims before. Anyone else remember "Lindows" which then became Linspire?

[6Foot2]

Link: ReactOS 0.4.13 released [ReactOS Project]

 

The ReactOS Team is pleased to announce the release of version 0.4.13. As with prior releases, keywords are noted representing the release itself and highlighting key improvements. In this particular case, the 0.4.13 version shows the results of significant hard work to bring improvements to the USB stack, further development on the Xbox port boot process, an Explorer File Search for the Shell module, as well as many other changes...