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Like this here ReactOS thing?

This is a legitamate question. First of all, please visit the ReactOS website (not in the parent news story), as this an many other FAQs are answered there. (Sorry, it got slashdotted apparently even without the link, but the FAQs are there, really.)

This is more of a case of options, rather than why one is better than the other. As was mentioned clearly in the interview, ReactOS and Wine are working together, and there is quite a bit of mutual support they can give each other. It is not one or the other, but rather many efforts can help both projects at the same time. In fact, as Wine is moving to support more Windows applications, it is necessary to work with even more kernel services.

These two projects are attacking the same problem, but from different directions. This is why the cross-pollenation efforts are even more valuable, because each group sees a different set of problems and finds good solutions often when the other group isn't quite looking there yet.

In terms of re-inventing Windows, this is the only group that I've seen that has succeeded. There have been other groups in the past that have tried, but almost all of their efforts have been folded into ReactOS in terms of active developers and design ideas. The unsung hero with all of this is Jason Filby, who has done a remarkable job of keeping this project going through litterally years of effort when even a command prompt was not available. He is the driving force that is keeping everything together, and a very approachable person as well. When this project succeeds, he is certainly somebody who deserves strong kudos from the open source community.

Why a free software version of Windows? I think this will be very important to think about when Longhorn comes out, but Microsoft show little to no support for legacy applications, and is more than willing to abandon platforms when it serves their purposes. This is a matter choice, and this project will give more options, not fewer.

If you are not familiar with the NT kernel, there really is some amazing architecture that from an OS viewpoint should be studied. It is more like the difference between a GM engine and a Ford engine (for those few amature auto mechanics out there who know what I'm talking about). Each has it own fans and critics, but comparing Unix to NT shows some significant design choices in the basic fundimentals of the operating system. Microsoft has muddied up the picture in part because there hasn't been (until ReactOS) an independent implementation of the NT kernel or with the exception of Wine an implementation of the Win32 API library.

This really is more the debate of propritary vs. open source, which is probably why this news posting on /. hasn't generated more responses. ReactOS is on the side of Free Software, and everything in it can be compiled and used with exclusively open source tools. As was pointed out in the interview, ReactOS can compile and develop ReactOS (it is self-hosting), but all of the little annoying things that a typical developer doesn't likes havn't been worked out yet.

If you want to see something really neat, try and get ReactOS running with Mono. Mono is aiming more for Linux compatability right now, but with ReactOS handling some of the Windows API issues, ReactOS+Mono will run many of dotNET applications that won't run under Linux. All of the command-line Mono development tools will currently run in ReactOS, and I think this is another untapped combination that hasn't really been followed.

ReactOS

The could be using code from ReactOS. While they are far from complete, they are getting close to an OSS version of Windows NT.

That is assuming it's not all a lie.

Its a free open source operating system that is a clone of Windows NT. Reactos website

• Glow is an OpenOffice.org project to develop a full-featured groupware client application using Java, eventually covering group calendaring, mail, instant messaging, folders & web whiteboard and P2P content exchange (see Feature Plan below). Glow will function as a network client as well as provide full offline support, including synchronization.

Just imagine: running OpenOffice.org on the ReactOS (a free Windows NT clone), with Mono (a free .NET implementation). A completely free replacement for Windows.

I'm worried about when ReactOS pops up on their radar. Its a pretty promising project.

Maybe Microsoft is trying to do to ReactOS what SCO is trying to do to Linux?

Although it will be able to run .NET natively, Mono will enable the React OS to offer a completely free solution to Windows XP + .NET.

For those of us for whom Wine is not enough, but are hesitant to follow on the Windows DRM path, the ReactOS offers an alternative to the Microsoft lock-in, and Mono is an important part of that solution.

Oh, then they will release a message. "We found our secret code, it is now called ReactOS." Or Wine was able to improve because our code was leaked, they stole our IP ecc.

However we can also look up whether our intellectual property was infringed by Microsofts' code.

I think this is a media campaign, that will result in further Sco like action: thjex copied our ideas because Linux freaks stole our code blabla

For me, the most interesting thing happening in Wine has been the ReactOS project. Basically, it's an attempt to clone the Windows NT operating system.

I would imagine that thanks to the story that came through 6 hours later, ReactOS will start improving a great deal faster.

Tainted or not, once the source is out there you can't put it back in the bottle.

ReactOS have announced they have hit all upcoming milestones and consider their project "feature complete".

There have been a number of attempts to clone the Windows OS in the past (i.e. Freedows and the Alliance OS), but most of them have self-destructed with no real product.

The ReactOS, on the other hand, has managed to get the core NT working, and has been added the Wine libraries to supply much of the functionality. Earlier last month they released a version with a functioning Windows Explorer clone, and they seem well on the way of reaching the goal of running OpenOffice and Mozilla by October, 2004. The target of a fully functional Windows OS replacement is only about a year away.

There have been a number of attempts to clone the Windows OS in the past (i.e. Freedows and the Alliance OS), but most of them have self-destructed with no real product.

The ReactOS, on the other hand, has managed to get the core NT working, and has been added the Wine libraries to supply much of the functionality. Earlier last month they released a version with a functioning Windows Explorer clone, and they seem well on the way of reaching the goal of running OpenOffice and Mozilla by October, 2004. The target of a fully functional Windows OS replacement is only about a year away.

There have been a number of attempts to clone the Windows OS in the past (i.e. Freedows and the Alliance OS), but most of them have self-destructed with no real product.

The ReactOS, on the other hand, has managed to get the core NT working, and has been added the Wine libraries to supply much of the functionality. Earlier last month they released a version with a functioning Windows Explorer clone, and they seem well on the way of reaching the goal of running OpenOffice and Mozilla by October, 2004. The target of a fully functional Windows OS replacement is only about a year away.

What do normal users need with a compiler? If you want one you can get one here.

2) It had no INTENDED remote access services such as FTPD or SSHD.

of course it didn't, that's what Windows Server 2003 is for.

3) I was unable to manipulate graphics.

*gasp* welcome to the world of closed source! Companies actually make MONEY here. You can do basic graphics manipulation using Paint, or you can download The Gimp of course, otherwise you should spring for a copy of Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop

4) I was unable to use my Network Card.

5) I was unable to optimally use my graphics card.

6) I was unable to optimally use any piece of hardware that didn't have Microsoft written on it.

What kind of bizarre obscure hardware where you using? Windows XP properly detects alot more hardware then linux does currently.

It takes for ever to do anything in Notepad as compared to Vi.

Then by all means, download vi and use it. Some people like working with this little thing called a Graphical User Interface.

8) I had practically no system logging to speak of.

Windows XP is a desktop OS, you can find all the logging you should ever care for at Start->Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Event viewer.

9) I was unable to use multiple desktops.

10) I was unable to entirely change the appearance of the GUI.

most display drivers come with desktop management software, or you can use Windows XP's quicklogin features to have multiple login sessions. Part of the reason Windows is so successful is that you CAN'T entirely change the GUI. Windows, at it's core, always looks like Windows, even with a skin applied.

11) I was unable to simply download much of the software needed to render Windows somewhat useful. Even though Gimp and OpenOffice run on Windows and GVIM, refer to number 4.

See my answer to number 4.

12) I kept getting "Access Denied" or something along the lines of insufficient permissions even though I believe I gave myself full rights over the system. On Windows 2000 this can be seen even if you are logged in as Administrator.

Wow, Microsoft prevents you from killing critical system processes! What a shock! Oh no! what ever shall we do?!? Seriously though, the only time i've ever gotten access denied is when a file is in use, or you try to kill a critical system process (except XP, which lets you)

13) I had to reboot fifteen times, and four hours later while windowsupdate.microsoft.com told me I needed nearly a GB of updates. Many of which could only be installed one at a time. 14) Then another two hours and multiple reboots becuase of installing device drivers (refer to number 6) and then updating those from the old drivers that were on old disgarded discs in the closet.

with the default install of XP, there are 50 mb worth of updates + sp1, which is another 30 or so, a far cry from the 1 gb you speak of.

15) I had next to nothing in regards to software and production....

Compared to what you get with the average Linux ISO image.... Windows, out of the box, is a pathetic quadriplegic whose wheel chair is missing a wheel.

Then, Microsoft goes and strips so much "functionality" from Windows XP to publicly admit it's "crippled"? What more can you take from it?

They never stripped functionality, it was never there to begin with. Windows XP is a desktop OS for every day users, not for supergeeks.

Disclaimer: I am not pro microsoft nor am i in any way being paid by microsoft for this comment. (On the contrary, i'm working on an open source Microsoft Windows NT Compatible Operating System called ReactOS The parent was a blatant troll and i was simply shedding some light on the truths.

Sam Greenblatt, senior vice president and chief architect of Computer Associates International Inc.'s Linux Technology Group, in Islandia, N.Y., agreed about the need for virtualization technologies. "Right now, you can have multiple Linuxes virtually operating, but we would love to see that expanded so that you could power other operating systems, whether that be Unix or Windows,"

already in the works... or at least an open source win NT compatable environment for device drivers and applications ReactOS

It might not yet be ready for prime-time, but it is getting there. It can use NT drivers too. If Dell and others support it and contribute to the development, it can be a good alternative to Windows.

Well in Windows NT every object has a seperate ACL, and in at least v5 (win2k), you can have multiple sessions; each one has a seperate branch in the Object Manager's namespace: these are links to all the devices used by the win32 subsystem. In theory, you could run each process in a seperate session, but the overhead would be disgusting. You could at least provide a seperate user account for each program you planned to run, giving it explicit minimal permissions.

My point is that some of these things already exist in some form, even if they are badly implented and supported. What I am looking forward to is ReactOS: An open source WinNT clone.
And in the mean time, what is also needed is a tool that analyzes the minimum access required for something and can be used to easily apply the settings.

And when this becomes a little more mature. We can have KDE on Windows that RMS would approve of. Not that I seek the approval of RMS (Yes I auctually do buy closed source software.) Its nice to see at the very least free software has turned windows from a product ot a concept.

Actually, there really isn't a great reason to use Sky OS over Linux or BSD... and that's not the point. Sky OS is one of many smaller projects whose primary purpose is to satisfy the hobby needs of the creator... Kind of like where Linux was when Linus decided his schoolwork was too boring.

There are many other examples out there. Contiki, Triangle Os, and many others.

There are also Open Source, commercial, and potentially useful hobbyist systems out there. However, if you are looking for the most comprehensive, useful desktop suite, look elsewhere. All of these Os's are unique and well-intentioned, but very few are actually practical.

Practicality is not the point. Curiosity is the point. What would a different implementation look like? What if all the graphics subsystems were contained in the kernel? How would a real-time OS feel to the user? These questions can't be answered by just releasing a new X theme, and there aren't very many people curious enough to find out.

These people are true geeks... Software for software's sake. Kudos to you all.

The chance for us to demonstrate such a direct competition to Microsoft at COMDEX would be well worth leaving leaving another project behind.

It works just fine under XP as a shell. If you want to test it without replacing your current shell, just launch it from the command line with the -desktop option.

http://www.reactos.com/

And WINE and this list goes on...

The original idea was to implement the Windows.Forms library with some native toolkit. But since it's so dependant on the Microsoft windows model, it turned out they would pretty much have to write it from scratch - or use Wine.

There's also React OS, an Open Source implementation of Windows NT. They've spent most of their effort over the last couple years working on the core functionality. Now that most of the core is working, they can use Wine libraries as the basis of much of the higher level functionality, instead of writing it from scratch.

Hrm... the ReactOS site seems to be offline at the moment. From the Google cache of the announcement of stuff due at the end of Augusy:

• Amongst other features and fixes, this release will include a greatly improved win32k.sys (better, windowing, keyboard support, more routines completed overall), the beginning of an explorer.exe, more controls ported from WINE for user32 (menus, messageboxes and dialogs), greatly improved performance for the standard VGA driver and further work on the NDIS driver.

Once GPLed it would ship. If not by them, by someone else. I don't know if ReactOS would be happy to be redundant or annoyed that their little challenge was taken from them.

Well, dont feel too bad about losing official Microsoft support for Windows NT, at least we have the fun of trying out ReactOS ...
I look forward to those guys coming up with a workable Windows NT clone one of these days.

There is a Windows NT with a command line interface, it's called Reactos, and it is not sponsorized by Micro$oft... :-)

say what?

It appears you're confusing QT with Qt. QT, or QuickTime, is Apple's multimedia platform for Mac OS and Windows. Qt, on the other hand, is a copylefted GUI toolkit for X11 and a proprietary GUI toolkit for Windows, Mac OS, and X11. A native port of the free version of Qt to Windows will not be released until ReactOS is done; a native port of the free version of Qt to Mac OS X will not be released until GNUstep is done.

Why bother when there's ReactOS?

hrm, they seem to be doing just fine without windows, sorry ugh .. windoze.. being open source.

why would hackers be interested in the OS that every script kiddo can take down with two fingers of her weak hand

To rewrite it

And copying the Windows CD itself isn't doing the work yourself?

No, you dumbass. Unless you're spining the disc on your finger and using a pocket laser pointer with a prism to read the pits and lands, you're still not doing the work yourself.

Apart from that, you know full fucking well what the difference is between copying the bit patern that comprises a Windows CD, and actually creating a copy of Windows itself. These guys are doing the work themselves You would just be a kiddie with a CD-R.

Just stop trying to make excuses and get over it. You're wrong.

Unlike some doomed attempts to make a "better" Windows clone *cough*Freedows*cough* that degenerated into a puff of vaporware, the fine people at ReactOS have been keeping their noses to the grindstone and quietly worked away at getting an NT clone working. It's still a long way from replacing NT, as this screenshot of the one and only GUI application shows.

But if you want a free and open look at Inside the development of [a] Windows NT [clone], ReactOS is a good place to look.

They've done a number of things right:

• Shut up and coded...
• Picked NT as a target instead of the more glitzy Win9x
• And coded...
• Focused on core features instead of the GUI
• And coded...
• Borrowed from Wine where it seemed sensible

Did I mention they spend thankless hours coding?

Unlike some doomed attempts to make a "better" Windows clone *cough*Freedows*cough* that degenerated into a puff of vaporware, the fine people at ReactOS have been keeping their noses to the grindstone and quietly worked away at getting an NT clone working. It's still a long way from replacing NT, as this screenshot of the one and only GUI application shows.

But if you want a free and open look at Inside the development of [a] Windows NT [clone], ReactOS is a good place to look.

They've done a number of things right:

• Shut up and coded...
• Picked NT as a target instead of the more glitzy Win9x
• And coded...
• Focused on core features instead of the GUI
• And coded...
• Borrowed from Wine where it seemed sensible

Did I mention they spend thankless hours coding?

GCC having competition would be very good. It would make gcc and watcom better. Auctually ReactOS might benifit from this. I'm doing the java thing and mostly database oriented stuff right now, but Its good to see stuff happening in the system programming world.

I've been trying to migrate people _away_ from windows, this only makes it easier for them to stay ;-)

I disagree. Take a longer term view. This makes it easier for them to leave Windows. Nothing happens overnight. And won't happen as quickly as I would like.

While so much noise and attention is being focused on Linux, I think the biggest threat to Microsoft is, once again, sneaking in under the radar. (Step 1: First they ignore you.) The biggest threat: cross-over applications. Stuff like OpenOffice. Or the GIMP. (And yes, I understand that GIMP is not a competitor to professional Photoshop users.)

It seems like more and more cross platform tools and toolkits are available. This was once the holy grail, and there were basically NO solutions. Now, a recent slashdot article reveals many ways to develop cross platform applications and gui's.

KDE and Qt are both being ported to Win32 (with GPL license). At some point, expect a flood of KDE applications, including another free KOffice suite, to be available for Windows. Other projects such as The Open CD and GNU Win II only help accellerate the acceptance of not only free, but open source applications by ordinary windows users.

Eventually, users recognize: hey the OS is irrelevant!

In the meantime, Linux on the desktop will have improved a great deal. Or instead, perhaps the recent RelaxOS?

I certainly hope you realize that those are all screenshots of ReactOS running under Bochs running under Windows XP. Only the second image shows off the ReactOS GUI, which seems to be a WINE derivative.

I certainly hope you realize that those are all screenshots of ReactOS running under Bochs running under Windows XP. Only the second image shows off the ReactOS GUI, which seems to be a WINE derivative.

If you would look at the webpage, there IS screenshots. here, here, here and here.
The GUI looks just like the XP GUI, and to me, it looks neat.

If you would look at the webpage, there IS screenshots. here, here, here and here.
The GUI looks just like the XP GUI, and to me, it looks neat.

If you would look at the webpage, there IS screenshots. here, here, here and here.
The GUI looks just like the XP GUI, and to me, it looks neat.

If you would look at the webpage, there IS screenshots. here, here, here and here.
The GUI looks just like the XP GUI, and to me, it looks neat.

Anyone else notice from one of the screenshots on the website that this thing appears to be using WINE and X11 to run GUI Windows apps? Check it out...

yes, no gui whatsoever...

Microsoft Word XP, watch your back!

Don't forget to visit *nix.org.

They are ... see ReactOS

...is to let developers like the fine folks at ReactOS who would have a terrible time developing it if it weren't for Bochs!

I don't see why everyone is comparing it to wine or vmware because it's simply not the same thing.

By the way... support ReactOS !! :)

Alot of open source projects have died of late. It would be nice if new developers would pick up where the old ones left off. There are also alot of projects out there that are in need of help. For example ReactOS, an open source, modular windows NT clone has a bright future, it just needs more developers. It is currently farther along then any other 'windows clone' project around. I'm not affiliated with the above said project. There are also alot of closed source projects that are dead, but those are another story ---- MetaWorx Software (Under Reconstruction)