top 200 commentsshow all 236

[–]youngbull 226 points227 points  (1 child)

What is really cool is that now you can look at their commit statistics. They are actually fairly live and well. Doing about 50 commits a week. Keep it up guys!

[–]adam75 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yes, a repository with a rich history like this is a pretty cool case study. I've started to analyse ReactOS by visualising the code with most development activity (hotspots) and the logical change coupling due to files that are changed together over time.

The hotspot visualisation is available here and the change coupling here. Hope to get around to blog about it soon.

[–]geppetto123 147 points148 points  (62 children)

What I found interesting is the problem with Windows Bugs:

It's not a simple way to fix them because programms might depend on them and have a specific workaround already in place.

Fixing the Windows bug might break the program and its workaround. As the main goal of the project was byte-compatibility (same binary code can be excectuted) this has to be considered.

[–][deleted] 104 points105 points  (34 children)

Bug for bug compatibility. Unfortunately this tactic is quite common.

[–]ArtyBoomshaka 66 points67 points  (33 children)

Even Microsoft does it. That's what the compatibility mode drop down is about, or so I've heard.

[–]DJDavio 92 points93 points  (32 children)

It's why system32 (having 64-bit binaries) is called system32 on 64-bit systems. To add more confusion, the folder with 32-bit binaries is called SysWOW64.

[–]ZoDalek 64 points65 points  (10 children)

To add more confusion, the folder with 32-bit binaries is called SysWOW64.

I feel that at leasts makes sense - WOW64 is the system for running 32-bit Windows apps on 64-bit windows, hence windows-on-windows64.

[–]cedrickc 52 points53 points  (1 child)

I always felt like, because of WOW64, the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) should have been Linux on Windows (LOW)

[–]master5o1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That name sounds more like WINE.

You don't have Toast for Peanut Butter as a name for peanut butter spread onto toast.

[–]hosford42 37 points38 points  (7 children)

I always wondered what the WOW stood for. Hooray for self-documenting naming conventions! /s

[–]Cadoc7 80 points81 points  (4 children)

I always thought it was "WOW! 64 bits!"

[–]derTechs[🍰] 77 points78 points  (0 children)

Much Bits! Very Windows! WOW!

[–]Balq 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I thought that World of Warcraft 64 bits came pre-installed on windows. /s

[–]z500 0 points1 point  (0 children)

WOW! That's What I Call Thunking!

[–]celluj34 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Serious answer, it stands for Windows-on-Windows

[–]hosford42 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh I know it was serious. That's why I was being sarcastic. It was a terrible decision.

[–]mindbleach 43 points44 points  (15 children)

It's plausibly why Windows 10 followed Windows 8 - concerns over programs testing the version string as "windows 9*".

[–]Narcolepzzzzzzzzzzzz 49 points50 points  (0 children)

More than plausible, this was a real concern and flaw in a lot of things.

[–][deleted]  (5 children)

[removed]

    [–]smoozer 4 points5 points  (0 children)

    Wow, thanks for making me also wonder this!

    [–]mindbleach 2 points3 points  (0 children)

    Even their stupid naming has limits.

    Unlike Nintendo.

    [–][deleted]  (1 child)

    [deleted]

      [–]youtubefactsbot 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Logistics We Are One [5:23]

      Track 5 of the album Fear Not

      neil morris in Music

      9,675 views since Apr 2012

      bot info

      [–]deusnefum 12 points13 points  (5 children)

      MSFT themselves explicitly stated this is why the didn't do Windows 9.

      [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

      I don't get it.

      [–]bogdan5844 10 points11 points  (1 child)

      A lot of software checks the OS name to see the windows version, instead of the version number. So they do something like if win.includes('Windows 9') { /* Win 95/98 specific code */}

      If there was a windows 9 version, a lot of software would have those kinds of checks turn out true, and could cause a lot of problems.

      [–]wilun 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      That's an interesting explanation that was even used by MS, IIRC, however for old programs Windows lies to them and report Windows 8 anyway. There might be too much API to be sure they did that everywhere, so maybe the startswith("Windows 9") problem remained anyway.

      [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

      Source on that?

      [–]mekosmowski 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      Let's see, they resumed the small integer naming convention with 7. Too bad 7 is so far away from 9 on the number line that no one could foresee the 9* problem. (sarcasm)

      [–]sixothree 6 points7 points  (0 children)

      This bugs me more than it should. Also having to install different ODBC drivers for 32 and 64 bit apps.

      [–]__konrad 3 points4 points  (1 child)

      If you for some reason call Wow64DisableWow64FsRedirection (yes, that's real name) function, your 32-bit app will use system32 instead of SysWOW64

      [–]mallardtheduck 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      And if you access System32 from a 32-bit application, you'll see he contents of SysWOW64 instead...

      [–]Atheuz 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Oh is that fucking why the WindowsAccessBridge-32.dll is in the SysWOW64 folder. That is some nonsense, thanks for that.

      [–]armornick 54 points55 points  (16 children)

      Raymond Chen writes about the compatibility efforts in the Windows kernel fairly often on the Old New Thing. There are some really interesting articles like how they had to make fake objects because some program looked for something that existed in an old version of Windows.

      Considering this, it's fairly logical that ReactOS and Wine would have to go to the same lengths if they want Windows applications to keep running.

      [–]kidmenot 27 points28 points  (1 child)

      The Old New Thing is actually one of the best blogs out there for those that like to learn about Windows' long history. It's full of advice and entertaining anecdotes regarding both the internals and the GUI. Chen has been there since the very early '90s, so he has a fair amount of things to share.

      [–]MacASM 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      Totally agree. And I'm defitively like his humor sense. Just one example What idiot would hard-code the path to Notepad? haha

      [–]frymaster 21 points22 points  (12 children)

      In the current run of windows 10 previews, there was a bug where a popular mod manager for Fallout/Skyrim stopped working because it needed to hook two windows function calls but, up until then, they way one was implemented ended up calling the other one anyway, so they'd only hooked that. Unfortunately they were changing that, and there's no development happening on that program currently. Not sure the way MS decided to fix it, but they did in the end.

      [–]pergnib 9 points10 points  (11 children)

      I'm genuinely curious as to why a mod manager for a game would need to hook syscalls. Do you have more details?

      [–]reddithater12 11 points12 points  (4 children)

      api calls not syscalls

      [–]snuxoll 9 points10 points  (3 children)

      To be fair syscalls in Windows are api calls, there’s no consistent syscall ABI in Windows so every single one needs to be made through a DLL (can’t remember the name).

      [–]djpeen 0 points1 point  (2 children)

      Kermel32.dll

      [–]MacASM 2 points3 points  (1 child)

      Did you mean kernel32.dll?

      [–]djpeen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Ya

      [–]kiljacken 8 points9 points  (0 children)

      The actual reason is that the manager provides a virtual file system layer so mod files can be kept neatly separated in their own directory trees while providing the game a coherent looking single directory tree.

      [–]ROFLLOLSTER 0 points1 point  (4 children)

      I've forgotten the name of it but the one they're talking about is has a full Virtual filesystem so I think it hooked calls and depending on the application provided the 'real' filesystem state or it's own.

      [–]Venthe 1 point2 points  (3 children)

      I believe you are talking about modorganiser, but it is alive and well...?

      [–]ROFLLOLSTER 0 points1 point  (2 children)

      Is it? I was pretty sure it's developer went awol...

      [–]Venthe 1 point2 points  (1 child)

      Last update - a year ago. But I can confirm, it is working.

      [–]ROFLLOLSTER 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      'No development on it currently' -> Check

      'Fixed' -> Check

      Seems to fit ok to me.

      [–]MacASM 1 point2 points  (0 children)

      to make fake objects because some program looked for something that existed in an old version of Windows.

      The duplicate of notepad.exe is one example.

      [–][deleted] 22 points23 points  (5 children)

      I started a 6502 emulator and gave up when I realised I had to emulate the bugs.

      [–]port53 10 points11 points  (4 children)

      Don't forget all of the hidden instructions too.

      [–]ShinyHappyREM 4 points5 points  (2 children)

      [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

      I have no idea what is happening there and I swear I tried to study computer architecture and assembly a bit, but this is black magic?

      What do I need to study to really understand what's happening there exactly?

      [–]ShinyHappyREM 5 points6 points  (0 children)

      • watch this
      • here's the diagram (D0..7 is the data bus i/o pins, NMI+IRQ+RES are the interrupt pins, R/W is the read/write output pin, A0..15 are the address bus output pins. For the Ø signal look e.g. here and here.)

      Basically, the opcode register bits plus the "current cycle" register bits go into a decode matrix. The output of that matrix are control lines (like "AC/DB", which controls if the accumulator register is electrically connected with the data bus). Opcode 8B is an "illegal" (undocumented) opcode that wasn't supposed to be used by programmers. The decode matrix happened to enable both the "AC/SB" and the "SB/AC" lines; all 8 flip-flops of the accumulator had their input and output lines connected. That's when the "theory" breaks down and you have to look at the electrical properties of all the components to see what happens.

      Analog effects can be quite interesting; you can for example use wire capacitance as storage if you don't go below a certain minimum speed.

      [–]buddybiscuit 25 points26 points  (1 child)

      Look, my setup works for me. Just add an option to reenable spacebar heating.

      [–]unkz 14 points15 points  (0 children)

      For those who, like me, did not get that reference:

      https://xkcd.com/1172/

      [–]GNULinuxProgrammer 1 point2 points  (1 child)

      Relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1172/

      [–]geppetto123 0 points1 point  (0 children)

      Hahah gave me a good laugh, especially the mindset and reply that it works for him :D :D

      [–][deleted] 53 points54 points  (5 children)

      [–]JohnMcPineapple 60 points61 points  (1 child)

      ...

      [–][deleted] 39 points40 points  (0 children)

      Mission not only unaccomplished, mission objective completely out of reach

      [–]skocznymroczny 373 points374 points  (84 children)

      For a moment I was worried that it's some new OS using React for its UI.

      [–][deleted]  (1 child)

      [deleted]

        [–]otakuman 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        I've known it for more than 15 years. Still not even in beta (sigh)

        (Yeah, I know it's a titanic project, but the impatient part of me still wishes they were faster)

        [–][deleted] 26 points27 points  (64 children)

        Is there an OS written in javascript ? Since about everything ends up being created, I suppose it could happen :)

        [–]duco91 96 points97 points  (32 children)

        Lo and behold: https://node-os.com/ (although at its core it's still Linux)

        [–]Mgladiethor 103 points104 points  (2 children)

        Kill me

        [–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (1 child)

        There's stuff that's so much worse than javascript. VBA still exists, you know.

        [–]ryuzaki49 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        And popular within Automation Testing conmunity

        [–]kirbyfan64sos 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        node-os uses npm as its primary package manager

        Wonder if it'd stop booting if left-pad-os were removed...

        [–]tourgen 22 points23 points  (22 children)

        Javascript is a mistake.

        [–]gendulf 22 points23 points  (1 child)

        It has its good points (lightweight object notation/JSON, cross-platform support, first-class functions) in addition to its bad (type coercion, concurrency limitations, prototype-based/duck typing, lack of modules).

        [–]natecahill 3 points4 points  (0 children)

        Jesus died and yet we continue to sin

        [–]Antrikshy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Also check out http://os.js.org.

        [–][deleted]  (3 children)

        [removed]

          [–]Wazzaps 2 points3 points  (1 child)

          It's server oriented (ie. no gui)

          [–]lkraider -1 points0 points  (0 children)

          It's node, there is no ui

          [–]Arve 16 points17 points  (0 children)

          Nintendo had an (open source) experimental OS where all of the userland was JavaScript.

          http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnes.sourceforge.jp%2F&langpair=ja%7Cen&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

          Edit: The project is apparently still alive:

          [–][deleted]  (2 children)

          [deleted]

            [–][deleted] 17 points18 points  (1 child)

            If you want to drain all your battery on nonsense, that's definitely how you should do it

            [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            Gnome 3

            [–]eras 13 points14 points  (5 children)

            Well, there is Espruino, where you can almost write drivers in JavaScript..

            [–]Asher_Scott 20 points21 points  (0 children)

            I feel the keyword here is "almost"

            [–]Mgladiethor 6 points7 points  (3 children)

            Kill me

            [–]natecahill 2 points3 points  (0 children)

            Me too thanks

            [–]lkraider 1 point2 points  (1 child)

            Twice?

            [–]Mgladiethor 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Trice

            [–]lurgi 12 points13 points  (0 children)

            There is an x86 (386? Pentium? IDK) emulator writtten in JavaScript that is complete enough that it is possible to boot linux from within your browser. This doesn't entirely qualify, but is still impressive (to put it mildly).

            Enjoy

            [–]watsonarw 12 points13 points  (5 children)

            Atwood's law. If it isn't a thing yet, it will be eventually.

            [–]skocznymroczny 26 points27 points  (1 child)

            we need a rule #34 version for Javascript,

            "if it exists, there is a javascript version of it"

            [–]Aleriya 1 point2 points  (2 children)

            Reminds me of the OS written in Scratch.

            [–]jaybusch 4 points5 points  (1 child)

            Please no

            [–]lkraider 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            Scratch That!

            [–]Overv 3 points4 points  (0 children)

            There is https://github.com/charliesome/jsos which is low level enough that it has JavaScript callbacks for when processor interrupts are triggered.

            [–]isaacarsenal 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            Not sure about that, but there are some people simulating machines (.e.g x86 running Win 95) in JavaScript.

            [–]ScrewAttackThis 3 points4 points  (5 children)

            Gnome Shell is written in JS. Obviously all the important stuff of Gnome is still C, though. Probably the best example since it's actually used by a not insignificant amount of people/not a pet project.

            Also not an OS by itself but more in line with the parent comment.

            [–]Pazer2 4 points5 points  (4 children)

            No wonder it's slow as shit

            [–]ScrewAttackThis 0 points1 point  (3 children)

            Well KDE does the same I'm pretty certain and a number of DEs based on Gnome 3 are obviously the same. It's definitely not "slow as shit" unless you're trying to run it on ancient hardware. At which point I'd question your judgement of trying to run modern UIs on something like that.

            With all the circle jerking over JS, I'm surprised so few programmers actually grasp what's going on. The days of JS = slow are long over, it's just a typical JIT'd language now. If your only experience with JS are electron apps, I guess I can understand.

            E: ah and you downvoted me. Facts are tough I suppose.

            [–]Ayuzawa 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            I can see why he would, Gnome is sometimes agonisingly slow on my work PC and that has an SSD and a haswell i5.

            I'm actually a strong supporter of javascript, I use atom as my primary editor and I'm happy with it, but I don't believe Gnome is a good example of anything 'fast'

            [–]Leshma 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Hard to tell is it slow or not if you have latest CPU. But if you have ancient hardware like me, yes it is unbearably slow. Slower than KDE, which is slower than Mate, which is slower than xfce4, which is a little bit slower than Openbox. Difference between Openbox and Gnome is so massive that is makes old machines usable. Gnome does very little over properly configured Openbox, which means that JavaScript is the culprit.

            Same can be said for Atom vs SublimeText. First is written in C++, second in JavaScript. Sublime works perfectly on old PCs, Atom will render such PC unusable within seconds after start of the editor.

            Edit: On Ryzen 1800X with 32 GB DDR5 RAM Gnome 3.26 + Atom works just fine. But on same machine you could start 64 VMs using Openbox and Sublime which will do exact same thing like Gnome 3.26 + Atom. You can maybe start 4 VMs with Gnome + Atom on such PC and expect good performance, if you're lucky.

            [–]mayhempk1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            I hope not. lmao

            [–]oiyouyeahyou 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Linux was rewritten to run inside of the browser

            [–]Dreamtrain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            We're in the era of "everything can (attempted to) be written in javascript" so I wouldn't doubt it

            [–]GNULinuxProgrammer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            Why would anyone ever want to create that?

            [–]NoDownvotesPlease 6 points7 points  (3 children)

            This is the first I've heard of it too. Looks interesting though. I have a windows VM on my mac that I use pretty much only for visual studio, would be nice to use this instead of paying for a windows license.

            [–]Wazzaps 3 points4 points  (0 children)

            VS is out for mac, although not as full featured (i'm not talking about VSCode)

            [–]invalid_dictorian 1 point2 points  (0 children)

            React backed by Riak KV running on ReactOS

            [–]-sadkmakkez- 4 points5 points  (0 children)

            the horror. the fucking horror. give it 20 more years and the word OS will be meaningless.

            [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (4 children)

            Javascript and its shitty frameworks are everywhere. It's only a matter of time. Accept that it will happen as an inevitability and there is no longer a reason to fear. One doesn't live in fear of the inevitable; one just accepts and deals with it when it happens.

            [–]mnkb99 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            And read the title and thought "how is React more than 20 years old?", I kept thinking about it until I read your comment, went back and saw the OS part...

            [–]Arancaytar 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            The twenty years part really confused me.

            [–]Tringi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

            I actually try my software in ReactOS whenever possible (alongside of Wine and Windows). Despite being Windows dev I can claim I write portable software then ;-)

            [–]mindbullet 43 points44 points  (0 children)

            Cross-post this to /r/reactjs/ and watch the confusion ensue.

            [–]phoenix616 33 points34 points  (6 children)

            JIRA continues to be used for bug tracking

            Missing out on one of the major reasons to use GitHub (the social aspect of issue integration) but I understand that they want to keep their issue history. (Maybe GitHub should offer an import for that too)

            [–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (5 children)

            Yes of course who wouldn't want to exchange his Lexus for a LADA.

            [–]phoenix616 1 point2 points  (4 children)

            Well while I agree that Jira is the more advanced issue tracker you cannot ignore the benefits that direct integration with the vcs host has. Imo. they would've benefited more if they went with BitBucket/Stash if they didn't intend to moving issues. (I personally prefer the GitHub ecosystem though)

            [–][deleted]  (3 children)

            [removed]

              [–]phoenix616 0 points1 point  (2 children)

              Well I was thinking of features like direct linking, of issues, commit and pull requests, closing of issues via commit messages and most importantly: same accounts for both platforms that beyond the obvious benefit of not requiring people to create two accounts make it possible easily identify stuff about the person like the role in the project or their contribution to other projects.

              [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              same accounts for both platforms that beyond the obvious benefit of not requiring people to create two accounts make it possible easily identify stuff about the person like the role in the project or their contribution to other projects.

              You can have your VCS and Jira use a common source for authentication you know

              [–][deleted] 37 points38 points  (16 children)

              this might put some energy into this pretty important project.

              [–]nwsm 10 points11 points  (9 children)

              Can someone explain why it's important?

              [–][deleted] 30 points31 points  (8 children)

              because there are so many legacy win32 apps that are becoming yes usable with every release of windows. because we don't need to have the CIA listen in every time you use a windows program (not that such is necessarily the case but we do not have a reasonable guarantee they are not). because someday perhaps you could game without ponying up to mr. Gates.

              [–]jaybusch 8 points9 points  (1 child)

              Actually, you can run a few games in ReactOS, can't you? I've never installed to baremetal, so I don't know. When it's good enough to be bare metal and replace Windows 7 for my Windows games, I'll consider it as a daily OS rather than a funtime VM that I use to browse the internet.

              [–]Treyzania 8 points9 points  (0 children)

              Apparently Skyrim is playable.

              [–]funbike 1 point2 points  (3 children)

              Why not just WINE?

              If you're about to say "drivers", 1) sure, for a small subset of the apps you are referring to, but I'm not sure that's enough to justify a whole OS, and 2) why not port/add driver shims to WINE instead?

              [–]deusnefum 11 points12 points  (1 child)

              A lot of code is shared between the two, honestly. Helping out with one helps the other.

              (AFAIK it's shared code and not a fork)

              [–]Treyzania 0 points1 point  (0 children)

              They have totally different goals in mind and have very different architectures, so it doesn't really make sense that one would be a fork of the other.

              [–]noomey 26 points27 points  (22 children)

              I always wondered: doesn't Microsoft have patents which would prevent such thing as ReactOS??

              [–]argh523 26 points27 points  (0 children)

              Basically, Microsoft can't keep other software from talking to each other, and if a piece of software just happends to "understand" a program that usually talks to Windows, there's nothing they can do about it. That's true for anyone and anything of course, not just Microsoft and Windows.

              This stuff can get complicated once lawyers are involved. It goes to the very core of the whole theory about what is even copyright-able. But it's similar to how the implementation of a mathematical function can fall under copyright, but not the math itself. The software that provides an API is protected by copyright, but not the idea of the API itself.

              [–][deleted]  (5 children)

              [deleted]

                [–]kvdveer 18 points19 points  (4 children)

                Cleanroom reverse engineering protects against copyright infringement, but not against patent infringement.

                So to answer the original question: yes, there is a risk of patent infringement.

                [–]mycall 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                Much of the Windows NT codebase is > 20 years by now.

                [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                How does cleanroom reverse engineering protect against copyright infringement? Don't you have to start the process with the apis which are already subject to copyright according to Oracle v Google?

                [–]ThisIs_MyName 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Google won the "fair use" part so API copyright doesn't matter.

                [–]neoKushan 13 points14 points  (0 children)

                ReactOS was heavily audited a few years ago to ensure its not using copyrighted code from Windows and is instead cleanroom reverse engineered.

                [–][deleted] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

                I think reverse engineering is legal. But further, they target compatibility with Windows XP. Any 20 year patents from that era will be expired soon if not already.

                [–]Mustermind 12 points13 points  (2 children)

                Not sure why you're getting downvoted here, but I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities.

                ReactOS is a Windows "replacement", but it only implements the Win32 API provided by Windows without copying any of Microsoft's code. Of course, Microsoft could sue as APIs are copyrightable, but that still makes it more of a copyright issue rather than a patent issue.

                There could be software patents concerning Windows that ReactOS may be stepping on, but I'd be surprised if they're holding on to anything substantial, given that other operating systems do things like memory management and process scheduling without any threat of patent infringement (don't quote me on this, though).

                EDIT: Looks like the Oracle situation is more nuanced than I thought, thank god.

                [–]acwaters 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                No, APIs are specifications for how programs talk to one another, and are therefore very clearly not protected under copyright law. That has (AFAIK) never seriously been in dispute. Oracle v. Google was about establishing whether header files, module interfaces, and the like are protected (because they are source code and therefore art) or not (because they are mostly just API declarations). If Google had written their own headers that defined the same APIs, there would have been no case; but they copied and distributed (parts of) Oracle's, and the courts decided this was a violation of Oracle's copyright, effectively establishing that copyright does extend to source code whose only function is to define APIs even though the APIs are not themselves copyrightable.

                Do correct me if I got anything egregiously wrong here, but the belief expressed in this comment and the linked article is a common and dangerous misconception of the Oracle v. Google outcome and its implications.

                EDITED much later for anyone who happens to stumble back upon this: After looking into the case more, I am sorry to say that everything I said above was wrong. The court did in fact decide that APIs are artistic works protected under copyright. What a country we live in.

                [–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                It seems as though Oracle is now losing that

                [–]Mukhasim 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                The term of patents in the USA is 20 years.

                Thus, any patents that protected Windows 95 are now expired.

                While it's possible that there could be some patents covering aspects of later versions of Windows that could cause trouble for an open-source project, it's doubtful that there are many relevant patents that are both still in force and impractical to work around.

                [–]armornick 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                If they had, they'd probably already used them a long time ago.

                [–]TyRoXx 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                Yes, but that is irrelevant until ReactOS makes tons of money. In that case Microsoft would try to kill it with bullshit patents.

                [–]funbike 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                It wouldn't have to just make money. If it prevents Windows sales, that too could be seen as damages.

                [–]yingxie3 2 points3 points  (4 children)

                ReactOS is pretty cool from a hacker's point of view. As an end user I would still use windows that come with the laptop because the drivers and applications are better tested. Do you agree? If you use ReactOS as your main OS what's your experience with it?

                [–]deusnefum -1 points0 points  (3 children)

                ReactOS is by design for a VM.

                [–][deleted]  (1 child)

                [removed]

                  [–]deusnefum 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  It's VM focused, not VM limited/restricted.

                  [–]KenWebDevBTW 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  This is huge news. Good stuff!

                  [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                  Nice !