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If he releases src code - he'll still make license so strict that it's never GPL compatible. And, even more - releasing src code may threaten projects like ReactOS http://reactos.org/ or Wine http://winehq.org/, because of possible legal concerns of developers gaining knowledge from that code (which might be considered as a derived work and thus copyright violation).

Windows CE 6.0 has an open source kernel, but there is a catch, Catch-22, which means when you agree to the CE 6.0 Kernel license, you are giving up a lot of your rights to Microsoft plus fees to even look at the CE 6.0 Kernel.

On the other hand, the ReactOS Kernel and entire OS is open source, and I'd much rather see people try to convert ReactOS 0.30 to Windows CE devices and develop drivers for it. No Catch-22 there, but it is free as in speech not as in beer, still it is free to download and look and work with it (not counting the bandwidth costs to download the source code).

I got an old Windows CE 2.0/3.0 iPaq h2215 that would love to get an OS upgrade, it is one of the many Windows CE devices that Gates forgot. It can still be useful. I think there might even be a Linux for it or something if I look hard enough for one. I'd much rather have ReactOS for it, if possible, so it can a Windows like OS and still look like a Windows based PDA rather than a Linux PDA. I am sure they can compile F/OSS Windows programs over to the ReactOS PPC, ARM, MIPS, etc formats and make them work with lower screen resolutions. If anyone knows any alternative OSes for the iPaq h2215 please write me an email or reply to this post.

I doubt Microsoft will allow a Windows CE 6.0 upgrade for it.

ReactOS is as close to a F/OSS version of Windows that we are ever going to get so far, and I think it needs more support. It shares code with the WINE project, so helping ReactOS will help Linux users who want a better WINE program.

You want an open source Windows clone? Go write one.
Better yet: Help with http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/index.html. They are trying to clone Windows outright.

#1 Stay with Windows XP

#2 Use ReactOS when it gets a 1.0 release.

#3 Sell my non-Linux compatible system for a Linux one and run Linux instead.

#4 That $599 Mac Mini is looking pretty good despite my previous Anti-Apple rants of the past decade. This Vista Fascism may be enough to get me to switch.

#5 Buy Vista Ultimate, because all of the games and business applications and other stuff I need/want to use only run with Vista, and I cannot work with limitations.

Sadly, I think most people will opt for #5, and that is what Microsoft is counting on. That is why Microsoft cripples the uses for the lower end Vistas to force people into buying the higher end Vistas.

Anyone remember the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST/TT/Mega systems? If only they decided to port AmigaDOS/AmigaOS and TOS/GEM to the Intel platform before Windows became really really popular in the 1990's. That way there would be no OS Fascism and Microsoft would have had a good run for their money.

Hmmmmm, maybe I need to help out ReactOS http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/index.html so it becomes good enough to run my kids games, than I can purge my house of all MS products.

well why don't reactos becomes the standar?

Absolutely -

The direction MS is going with windows will definitely not fill that niche - particularly for businesses that have to be cost concious and can't blow thousands or millions of dollars on new installations that support the latest and greatest from MS.

I wouldn't load Win98 on a 486 66 - even in 1998 - and as I mentioned that system only ran DOS before I got it. I do believe you can build a minimal Linux system on a Pentium 100 or better system that can appear just as full featured on the GUI as Win98 systems. The problem is no one in the Linux arena has that as a goal, that I am aware of (educate me if there are - as an aside, I do know there is a windows work-alike project called ReactOS that is going for binary equivalence to run win32 apps - and already has many native windows apps - MS Powerpoint, Adobe Photoshop etc.. - that will run on it).

To start such a project in Linux, you could list all the things you want to see on the system from an interface and tools perspective that a typical Win98 user would expect - and build to that standard. You would reach into your embedded systems bag of tricks to build highly tuned kernels that are fast, efficient, with a small footprint designed for those low-end processors. You would tweak the window manager to be more 'windows-like' (start with fvwm'95 or other lightweight window managers). On top of that you would add all the requirements for strange drivers - again the embedded approach would have merit - minimalistic and targeted. Finally, you would probably need to load WINE or Crossover Office in order to run ancient DOS and Windows apps that interface with the hardware or data produced by it - unless, of course, you could reverse engineer these applications and build them natively as a linux binary. I can see why this appears at first glance to be a daunting task.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything on the radar that targets this - which could be a missed opportunity for integrators - and a danger for those Win98 systems still attached to the network - as security erodes, or even those doing critical tasks off the net could be lost to corruption as drives fail over time - OEM installation disks notwithstanding. At some point these businesses will have to make a move - either replacing all the old gear, or spending the time building an open source solution that can have a lifespan longer than dictated by a vendor.

Not an easy problem; thankfully I don't have that problem to deal with - hence why I thought I could spend a few moments pointing out some alternatives.

You mean in the direction http://www.reactos.org/ is going?

Screenshots: http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/screenshots.html

You mean in the direction http://www.reactos.org/ is going?

Screenshots: http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/screenshots.html

Still, what you really want is a free verison of Windows. This is probably what you're looking for.

Now, let's start a FreeWindows so we can have a fully compatible Windows 3.11

The ReactOS team is already skipping forward to FreeWin2k.

I know it's not the same as WfWG3.11, but what about ReactOS? Still a long way to go, but you can begin to run applications on it. And it's 100% FOSS.

1. Why should we have to ask VeriSign permission to develop applications for our own computers? You know, there do exist drivers for legitimate purposes you know. I know of a driver that grants user mode direct access to administrator-chosen I/O ports. It's designed for when the OS's parallel/serial port drivers are not sufficient. This doesn't break security, and in fact its authors were very careful about that. They wrote it as open-source, so why should they have to pay VeriSign $500 for people to be able to use it? This isn't Xbox 360.

2. There are many free development tools. Vista costs money, but most people will already have paid for it.

3a. It does not prevent rootkits. NtCreateFile on \Device\Harddisk0\Partition0, NtWriteFile 512 bytes, NtShutdownSystem to reboot. Rootkit ahoy.

3b. PatchGuard, which is not related to forced driver signing, makes the "wannabe" rootkits much harder. PatchGuard can be cracked, but not robustly, because your crack will only work until the next second Tuesday.

3c. It does NOT protect against bad copy protections. In fact, it makes them stronger. SafeDisc will have a signed driver, but an anonymous cracker cannot.

4. I think the Windows NT kernel is the best general-purpose operating system kernel there is. I think Linux, especially the kernel, is a pile of crap. That's why I like the ReactOS project even though they'll be sued by Microsoft the day they become useful.

Melissa

http://www.reactos.org/?

Because ReactOS, in it's full ISO form that is burned to CD, is no larger than 25 megs - that's smaller than Damn Small Linux. This entire Os is specifically *AIMED* for efficient coders/programmers. (Remember this is an open-source *CLONE* of Windows - and since even a Win98 install is over 200 megs, yet this OS (Supporting the NTOS Kernel) is only a max os 60-70 megs install-wise? This system is so lean, mean, and clean, any developer would cream themselves to work in such a clean Windows environment. Don't believe me? Then go ask Ingram Micro - one of the largest computer retailer/developers in the world, and ask them about ReactOS and how it helped them test machines for Windows compatibility and how it boosted their income by half a million yearly by using home-built test machines to see what hardware combos worked - then they advertised it internally for more testers, until they finally asked some customers to test RC 0.2.? and they had an overwhelming response. What this means is that they found an amazing number of programs that work under ReactOS which were originally meant to run under Windows - this means BIG TROUBLE for Microsoft - Odds are ReactOS can even do open-source non-copy clones of Vista's multimedia handling system, and allow DirectX 10 to be installed and used.

You must not understand ReactOS is striving to find every imaginable way possible to clone Windows in any flavor without violating their own proprietary source code - you should be grateful to this, because an open-source Windows-capable OS means potential security, wider hardware support as more join the bandwagon, and perhaps better security since this kernel was originally designed to run Windows-native programs and handle Windows' insecurities while remaining secure itself. This OS has *YET* to disappoint me. I suggest you try it out further and MAKE SURE YOUR HARDWARE IS COMPATIBLE! (Check the compat list at http://www.reactos.org/ for details.) There are limitations to the install since it *IS* an Alpha "Release" (Even though we all know Alpha testing is internal testing and beta testing is public testing. Yes, I wish ReactOS Team would get that idea set right in their heads.))

http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Xen_port

There's no such things as FreeDOS nowadays, which was developped to late to be anything useful, specially it's not used by many people (including hardware manufacturer and corporate IT staff) to build bootdisks used to flash and upgrade firmwares and BIOSes(1). Neither is it used by computer manufacturer who signed an agreement with a popular OS company that forbids them to sell a computer without an OS.

Whith such an exemple of another old system, we can be sure that nobody will find whatever use for ReactOS, given the fact that Windows Vista will retain no compatibility with a legacy of win32 APPs and has nothing to do with the NT family which is emulated by ReactOS and Wine. And ReactOS and Wine have stated that they will never, I mean really never try to implement more modern API like Win64 and thus won't be able to run all the huge amount of 64bit apps that are seen everywhere (and of which most aren't open-source anyway and aren't ported to linux either (2) ).

ReactOS is likely to die and go the Linux/BSD way. Netcraft is confirming it in Soviet Russia. In Korea, only old people find usefulness to free and open alternatives that retain compatibility to commercial versions.

Har, har, har.

1 - bootdisks and -CD are specially popular in big places where you need to quickly upgrade BIOSes and Firmware non-interactively just by pluging a disc. The same can't be achieved from windows yet (there are windows-based flasher, but they can't be deployed thru usual network channels as software update)
2 - Windows 64bits is once again a proof of the supperiority of open-source. The first softwares that was the most easily ported to Win64 API were the open-source one, were the developpement is much easier because of source code availability : 7Zip, Blender&Yafray, Mame, FireFox, PuTTY, POV, VirtualDub, and many other. Where as only a couple of commercial games (because they make nice tech demos in booths) were ported, and almost no commercial multimedia package (although multimedia was supposed to benefit the most from the increased memory address space and was hoped to be among the first ported to Win64).

While that is indeed a cool idea, last I knew, the Xen port of ReactOS barfs once the kernel gets passed execution. http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Xen_port (Assuming that page is kept reasonable up-to-date.)

http://www.reactos.org/media/screenshots/2005/mcaf ee_stinger.png
why port/recode/whatever such an insecure OS?

Kind of a rhetorical question, but I'm kind of wondering if any reviewers have actually tested it on a real machine, rather than VMware, QEMU, etc. I've been watching it since 0.2.3 or so, and I've actually started toying around with 0.3.0-RC1 on a spare machine I have – Compaq DeskPro EP6000, PIII-650, 64MB – and have found that with, say, Notepad and Firefox running it's quite stable. Kept it up for around half an hour before I just got bored and shut it off. Doesn't yet support my video card or network, but it's still pretty nice.

My own review is on the ReactOS forums if anyone wants to know exactly what it's like – no pictures, because I haven't installed any screenshot or image manipulation software yet, but anyway... http://www.reactos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=20166

Anyway, just thought I might point out that it works on real machines just as well as, or in some cases even better than, on a virtual machine.

Don't forget it also runs Photoshop 3!!

http://www.reactos.org/xhtml/en/screenshots.html

Official ReactOS Website:
http://www.reactos.org/

Screenshots:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots
http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour

About ReactOS:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos

Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
http://www.reactos.org/?page=download

Compatibility Database:
http://www.reactos.org/support/

Official ReactOS Website:
http://www.reactos.org/

Screenshots:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots
http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour

About ReactOS:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos

Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
http://www.reactos.org/?page=download

Compatibility Database:
http://www.reactos.org/support/

Official ReactOS Website:
http://www.reactos.org/

Screenshots:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots
http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour

About ReactOS:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos

Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
http://www.reactos.org/?page=download

Compatibility Database:
http://www.reactos.org/support/

Official ReactOS Website:
http://www.reactos.org/

Screenshots:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots
http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour

About ReactOS:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos

Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
http://www.reactos.org/?page=download

Compatibility Database:
http://www.reactos.org/support/

Official ReactOS Website:
http://www.reactos.org/

Screenshots:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots
http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour

About ReactOS:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos

Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
http://www.reactos.org/?page=download

Compatibility Database:
http://www.reactos.org/support/

Official ReactOS Website:
http://www.reactos.org/

Screenshots:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots
http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour

About ReactOS:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos

Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
http://www.reactos.org/?page=download

Compatibility Database:
http://www.reactos.org/support/

Official ReactOS Website:
http://www.reactos.org/

Screenshots:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=screenshots
http://www.reactos.org/?page=tour

About ReactOS:
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about
http://www.reactos.org/?page=about_whatisreactos

Downloads (LiveCD, InstallCD, VM images):
http://www.reactos.org/?page=download

Compatibility Database:
http://www.reactos.org/support/

If you want screenshots then you can get them from the official site... http://www.reactos.org/de/screenshots.html

Why go through all that trouble when you could just run dosbox and have the same effect?

>> Money is a suprisingly efficient motivator.

But not an important one in this case, because most people will have bought their PCs with WinXP preinstalled and so the cost is hidden. In contrast, the pain and distress of their property being willfully disabled (because they've avoided WGA) will be immense, and a very strong motivator. The question is, motivator for what?

Well, some will no doubt relent and let the evil bastards install WGA. Some will see it as the last straw and migrate to Macs. Those of us who already use Linux or BSD will laugh and see it as confirming their views about MS, and no doubt the Unix-oriented FOSS movement will see some new recruits.

However, this is where I see the most exciting effect of MS's moronic action: ReactOS.

If Microsoft's product facism becomes too much of a pain for too many people, a direct replacement will start to become extremely appealing. For the non-technical MS masses, that O/S with a familiar face will become a far better proposition than submitting themselves to the fear of the unknown with Linux and Co.

It's still early days on the ReactOS project, but draconian measures of the kind suggested by TFA could swell the ranks of their developers and users very nicely. :P

People buy windows when there is a free alternative.

As a lot of other posters have said, there's not very much software for it other than what they themselves provide, but there's another side of it, too – hardware. If I remember right, last time I saw anything about SkyOS (I will admit it was a while ago) there was very little hardware or software support. Couple that with the high price tag – i.e., any price tag – and lack of publically-available source code, and I honestly just don't see any reason other than the hell of it.

Personally, if there's any "alternative" OS I hope takes off, it would have to be either Linux [insert obligatory reference to Ultima here], or one of my favorite "pet" projects, ReactOS. The nice thing about the latter is that it (will eventually) support the same software running on Windows, so if not the most ideal system – obviously, if it runs the same software, a lot of vendors may not see any reason for an open-source, Linux-compatible, etc. version of their product – at least it (will be) a somewhat practical one than a Linux system. And OpenBSD is totally kick-ass, although honestly I'd say it's probably in exactly the right place right now; those who can understand it can use it, and everyone else can stick with something better suited for them.

DISCLAIMER: I will admit I'm a Linux dev / distro maintainer and there may be some bias here...

That's exactly what I came here to post on it... But, does react OS work with Xen? Yes!

http://www.reactos.org/wiki/index.php/Xen_port

Mmm. Fun times, kids.

Well I agree, and Microsoft will shut out a lot of people, or force them to keep using Windows XP if not enough third party hardware is supported. Microsoft screwed Reveal before by refusing to support their hardware for Windows 95 and 98 and above. Lucky Reveal users could search by FCC-ID number to find the true makers of the hardware and obtain drivers for sound cards, ect for Windows 95 and above. I think Linux supports the Reveal hardware now, and Linux has a good track record of supporting older hardware.

Microsoft keeps changing the Windows driver model, and I think it is part of their business plan to do that to force people to use the latest and greatest hardware on the current version of Windows and shut out old hardware so they don't have to support it anymore.

Those worried about checking the HCL (Hardware Compatability List) of Vista can download an application from Microsoft to check your system to see if it is Vista ready. It will tell you what hardware is ready, and what is not supported. It will even tell you if you have enough memory (usually 512M is needed, but on systems that share System RAM with Video RAM and have 512M total and 448M free, the tool will complain about that shortcoming).

If people are shut out by old hardware they can switch to Linux, or try ReactOS when it reaches 1.0 in a few years or so, possibly after Vista has come out already. ReactOS has plans to support the WDM model and other older Windows driver models. I feel that ReactOS has a future, if they can pass that software audit, and reach the 1.0 milestone.

http://www.reactos.org/

Somebody company will eventually try it.

They wouldn't even give that away. The main appeal of Windows isn't really the OS itself, but it's application base is so huge. If Microsoft made the Win32 runtimes available, you could just build another OS that is compatible with their binaries. Which is actually what ReactOS is trying to do. So I sincerely doubt that Microsoft will ever release the source to their legacy products.

...would be that copy of the Windows 2k source code that is running around freely on your favorite p2p network !

Humour apart :
ReactOS and Wine would be closest thing to a Linux of Microsoft (namely an opensource implementation of a NT compatible system).
But they aren't done by Microsoft.

Note: I didn't check the ed2k links, I don't know if they are fake or guenuine

Only good for an X11 envrionment ? Try to explain this to the darwine team of opendarwin or the ReactOS developper team...

My tentative suggestion -- given that I have no Apple computers and no experience with BootCamp -- would be to take the bootloader from ReactOS for its Win2k-like behaviour and stick it and grldr from the Grub4DOS in a primary-4 (as in fourth primary partition as the MBR looks at it) partition a couple of megabytes in size, then you have primary-2 and primary-3 and their extended partitions to use with your GNU/Linux installation. The Grub4DOS may need its Grub.exe and its stage-specific files updated to cope with EFI booting, and this may be the stumbing-block of the enterprise. Good luck!

I would really like to see a free Windows OS "Core" kernal system...

not could happen. Did happen. ReactOS which is making an open source NT/2000 clone got infected with tainted (windows 2000) code and a all hell broke loose.

Any alternatives when OpenOffice.bloat panics?
http://www.reactos.org/archives/public/ros-dev/200 5-March/002423.html

Grapher, perhaps? (208K download)
http://students.washington.edu/bellc/grapher/viewp ic.php?pic=screenshots/gph0_93/gridlock.gif

Or Gnumeric? (15M)
http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/images/gnum eric-sample.png

Sally has no choice but to pay for another copy of Windows,

• freebsd
• openbsd
• netbsd
• gnu-darwin
• ReactOS
• SuSe
• Fedora
• Debian
• Gentoo

-- Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 8.2).

The ReactOS project (they're working on a Free Windows clone) also used a lot of Wine source to get where they are now.

the OSS community would probably bother to make/improve a .NET clone.

You mean, something like this?
 
.Netters will be hired back to adapt the differences to Linux

If this "difference" is writing code that calls directly out to the Windows API or Windows-only libraries, then yes, .Netters will be hired to "adapt the differences", but not to Linux. Simply to better coding standards, in which if you're going to call something not in the .NET API, you write proper bindings for it, and you use something portable, like OpenGL, instead of something Windows-only, like DirectX.

(because perfect cloning is probably not practical.)

Perfect cloning of the whole OS? Probably not. While there are several attempts, and while the Mono project did attempt to use components from Wine, not everything works, and even if it does, running under Wine sucks compared to a truly native port.

But, they are getting pretty damned close to perfectly cloning this aspect. As I understand it, quite a few applications written for .NET on Windows run unmodified on Mono on Linux, probably even on my AMD64 Linux.

Let me put it this way: It's perfectly possible, and sadly, far too common for a Java applet to be written that only works under Internet Explorer, in Windows. However, in Java, you hardly have to be trying to make something portable -- you almost have to be trying to write bad code to make it IE-only. All my courses so far that have used Java have worked just fine on 32-bit Windows, 64-bit Linux, and my 32-bit PPC Mac (a Powerbook). Even the IDE (Eclipse) was portable, to the point where I'd be able to rsync my workspace across.

This is not a matter of driver compatibility. The fast system call
stub is a mostly hardware-defined entrypoint, handled by low-level
software logic. In implementing it, there are only 3 available sources
of information: Whatever minimal info the Intel manual gives, the Linux
sources, the Windows kernel binary. It is almost simply impossible to
"guess" how the stub should work. Filip tried to make it work more then
a year ago, and even he gave up (the AMD version), beacuse it is simply
too hard and confusing unless you have some available code to look at.
As such, my first and foremost source was the Linux source code. It
helped me understand how to setup the LSTAR MSR register, as well as the
other register values. Then, through several mailing list posts, I was
able to understand some bugs in the way ReactOS had its segments set up,
which caused problems in the code. Then, to understand the way Windows
chose between INT2E and SYSENTER, I found a document online written by a
person called Elicz, which described the stub and what it should do,
much in the same way people argued "clean-room reverse engineering" is
done. With this information, I was able to write more then 85% of the
stub. My next, and final remaining possible step, was to use IDA to look
at the Windows code. I used it as a learning tool, not as a copying
tool. It is hard to argue that what I did was "Reverse-engineering",
which, to my knowledge, implies taking something apart to re-create it,
since this usually implies converting the assembly code to functional C
code or otherwise. But I don't view as looking at assembly in order to
understand a low-level hardware interface as "reverse engineering". And
yes, as described above, it -was- my last choice. Additionally, the
parts which were supposedly "copied" are NOT part of the functional part
of the code. They are debug helpers, offering nothing else but
assertions in case of problems.

Try it, post a screen shot, it'd probably work. Someone's already tried ReactOS under QEMU under ReactOS

It really all starts with Hartmut's leaving letter in the mailing list. If you read through, (just use the 'Next Message' link) you'll see the whole discussion/argument unfold.