I was an active developer of ReactOS for about the time period of 2003-2007, including acting as the release engineer for the project for 2 years.
I feel like I can speak from unique stand point as I saw everything from the inside.
ROS is a lot of things, but one thing it is NOT is production ready.
From what I can tell, not a lot in the process has changed since I left. I am sure a lot of things code wise have changed but not enough to make a marginal difference.
One of the biggest issues ROS faces is the lack of testers. Since it can't be used a production OS very few people will actually test it. When I was there, we had 2 dedicated testers. For a whole operating system, that will not cut it.
Another issue is with driver compatibility. While it is true that it runs good on emulated hardware, it has a long long way to go before actual Windows drivers let it run on actual hardware. One small thing in the driver can cause everything to stop working. And with only ~20 active developers at the time, there is a finite set of hardware that can be debugged on. Not to mention only 3-4 of the 20 developers were skilled enough to fix issues with device drivers.
ROS is also fighting uphill battle by chasing Windows when Windows has 100s of developers working on it. I left ROS and worked for Microsoft for two years so I also know how much faster MSFT is going then ROS. Though, even if they got to full XP compatibility it would be one of the most impressive feats I have ever seen of open source, I just don't see it happening anytime soon.
And finally, the last main issue with ROS is the developers itself. There was so few dedicated, we only had ~30 people with write permissions. Of those, only 15 were active. And those 15 were all working in their own area. I worked in shallow (read: non complex) Win32 API and user applications (cmd.exe, control panel, etc...). But everyone had their own section they were interested in and they worked at their own pace with little to no oversight. You either need focus/vision or resources to make real technical progress on a project this large. Without one of those you have no chance. And ROS didn't have either.
All that said, I loved working on ROS. It taught me how to write real code and I learned way more from working on ROS then I did getting my degree. The people on a personal level were great, and some of them were the most technically sound developers I have ever met. Sadly, a whole OS is being carried on their back.
Working on drivers should be put to one side (if indeed they are spending time on that) and they should work on the emulated hardware only until they reach XP-level. This would be a massive achievement that millions of Linux users etc. could benefit from in terms of running their Windows-only apps inside VirtualBox or the like, allowing them to dump their dual-boot setups just to run Quicken or what have you.
Your point about how Microsoft is accelerating faster than ReactOS is exactly why I don't pay much attention to ReactOS anymore. For a while, MS was sort of stagnating and the idea of catching up (reasonably well) was within reason, but now that they've kicked into gear, I just don't see it happening, especially with more focus on WPF, Silverlight, and Windows 8.
This has always seemed like a solution looking for a problem, to me. There are better Open Source operating systems for (more than) 80% of real world problems, and have been since before ReactOS began. If you're choosing an OS that can't run most of the big apps on Windows, anyway, why not simply choose a better OS to start with. It's obvious that Linux and UNIX systems are pretty vastly superior to Windows in all but application support...and there are several very good free and Open Source Linux and UNIX systems. And, as far as I can tell, WINE can run as much or more Windows software as ReactOS.
It's a tremendous amount of work to make a bug-compatible version of Windows. Of course, I can't argue with people and what they want to spend their time on, but I sure as heck wouldn't volunteer to work on a Windows clone. It seems a big waste of some really talented people's (and I'm certain they're quite talented; getting this far is a monumental feat) time.
Well from an outsider look I'd say the problem is the majority of businesses are running Windows and have reasons not to move off Windows. Even basic reasons such as staff training. This from what I can tell is addressing that issue.
As for your statement about Linux and Unix being better thats far from true. There are many areas where Windows doesn't compete at all with those systems, but its also completely true that Linux and Unix is completely rubbish at certain things Windows excels at.
Like most things you should choose the OS that meets your needs, and for most people using a Microsoft stack, with Microsoft trained users, using software aimed at Microsoft platforms then this could be the answer.
Proof will be in the pudding of course, these guys are far from ready at this point, and are approaching the hard part of a project.
The last time I used ReactOS it would crash and burn after using it for about 2-5 minutes with their supplied VMware image. This is with only using the applications that were included with it, as well.
This isn't a slam against ReactOS, but it's ready for 80% of real world use if you're using late 90s/early 2000s applications. Seems like Marat might've been stretching the truth to the president.
Ah, interesting, do you have a source on this? I'm very interested to see how much emphasis they are going to place on the new HTML5 / app style of development.
I expect Win32 MFC, ATL etc., will live on forever in some form, but Windows 8 sounds like it will be a break hard towards the future, in an even stronger way than the move from Win32 / MFC to .NET was.
[+] [-] BrandonMTurner|14 years ago|reply
I feel like I can speak from unique stand point as I saw everything from the inside.
ROS is a lot of things, but one thing it is NOT is production ready.
From what I can tell, not a lot in the process has changed since I left. I am sure a lot of things code wise have changed but not enough to make a marginal difference.
One of the biggest issues ROS faces is the lack of testers. Since it can't be used a production OS very few people will actually test it. When I was there, we had 2 dedicated testers. For a whole operating system, that will not cut it.
Another issue is with driver compatibility. While it is true that it runs good on emulated hardware, it has a long long way to go before actual Windows drivers let it run on actual hardware. One small thing in the driver can cause everything to stop working. And with only ~20 active developers at the time, there is a finite set of hardware that can be debugged on. Not to mention only 3-4 of the 20 developers were skilled enough to fix issues with device drivers.
ROS is also fighting uphill battle by chasing Windows when Windows has 100s of developers working on it. I left ROS and worked for Microsoft for two years so I also know how much faster MSFT is going then ROS. Though, even if they got to full XP compatibility it would be one of the most impressive feats I have ever seen of open source, I just don't see it happening anytime soon.
And finally, the last main issue with ROS is the developers itself. There was so few dedicated, we only had ~30 people with write permissions. Of those, only 15 were active. And those 15 were all working in their own area. I worked in shallow (read: non complex) Win32 API and user applications (cmd.exe, control panel, etc...). But everyone had their own section they were interested in and they worked at their own pace with little to no oversight. You either need focus/vision or resources to make real technical progress on a project this large. Without one of those you have no chance. And ROS didn't have either.
All that said, I loved working on ROS. It taught me how to write real code and I learned way more from working on ROS then I did getting my degree. The people on a personal level were great, and some of them were the most technically sound developers I have ever met. Sadly, a whole OS is being carried on their back.
[+] [-] abdulhaq|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] runjake|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nitrogen|14 years ago|reply
They could probably set up some elaborate automated testing with something like the Phoronix Test Suite, or just a bunch of scripts.
[+] [-] pavs|14 years ago|reply
ReactOS 0.3.13 is still in under heavy development (alpha stage) and is not ready for everyday use.
[+] [-] SwellJoe|14 years ago|reply
It's a tremendous amount of work to make a bug-compatible version of Windows. Of course, I can't argue with people and what they want to spend their time on, but I sure as heck wouldn't volunteer to work on a Windows clone. It seems a big waste of some really talented people's (and I'm certain they're quite talented; getting this far is a monumental feat) time.
[+] [-] rjd|14 years ago|reply
As for your statement about Linux and Unix being better thats far from true. There are many areas where Windows doesn't compete at all with those systems, but its also completely true that Linux and Unix is completely rubbish at certain things Windows excels at.
Like most things you should choose the OS that meets your needs, and for most people using a Microsoft stack, with Microsoft trained users, using software aimed at Microsoft platforms then this could be the answer.
Proof will be in the pudding of course, these guys are far from ready at this point, and are approaching the hard part of a project.
[+] [-] chrisballinger|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JohnTHaller|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xyzzyz|14 years ago|reply
http://www.reactos.org/en/news_page_67.html
It contains much more information.
[+] [-] runjake|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jigs_up|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] housel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] teyc|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] watmough|14 years ago|reply
I expect Win32 MFC, ATL etc., will live on forever in some form, but Windows 8 sounds like it will be a break hard towards the future, in an even stronger way than the move from Win32 / MFC to .NET was.