Discussed several times on HN, including 4 months ago:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34426198" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34426198</a><p>(204 points/4 months ago/129 comments)
"ReactOS™ is an Open Source effort to develop a quality operating system that is compatible with applications and drivers written for the Microsoft® Windows™ NT family of operating systems (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, 7).<p>The ReactOS project, although currently focused on Windows Server 2003 compatibility, is always keeping an eye toward compatibility with Windows Vista and future Windows NT releases."<p>I always felt that they should have focused on one, probably Windows XP, and tried for almost 100% compatibility, rather than moving the target toward later releases.
I was invited to join the ReactOS project about 10-12 years ago. I was part of it for, say, four days, then I left. I realized I could format my system drive with no warning or error. Then did a code review and realized that this project will never fly. I appreciate the motivation and goals, but I don't think you'll ever see a usable release of ReactOS. I am not against ReactOS, but the guys have way too few resources to ever be able to compete against Microsoft.
I think this is a great project I have followed for a while.
Havig multiple types of operating systems as open source I
think is vital for further progress towards a next generation
operating system. (Whatever that might be, I have lots of ideas)
I've tried ReactOS quite a few times.<p>But I still have to rely on running real Windows 7 as a VirtualBox guest to run my HP MFP Scanner Software about 10 times a year.
What works better to run everyday Windows apps?
Wine/Crossover or ReactOS?<p>I have really wished for Wine to support recent releases of Microsoft Office.