[superdisk]

I sometimes daydream about becoming a billionaire and bankrolling this project to completion. Would do the world so much good.

[sho_hn]

I still think Windows app compat for Linux (i.e. as Wine does and Valve productized with a gaming focus) is the better solution since it offers a true upgrade path out.

I realize ReactOS has a potentially wider useful scope (I think device driver compat is part of what they're attempting to do, so it'd offer a solution to keeping niche HW running) but I think it's just a smaller audience.

[snvzz]

>it'd offer a solution to keeping niche HW running

Preservation. It ensures WinNT survives as a platform even if Microsoft abandons it, which some would argue the present state of Win11 counts as doing.

[mghackerlady]

Has anyone thought about making the linux kernel roughly compatible with NT? Like how FreeBSD is compatible with Linux? I know it'd definitely be harder as NT is proprietary but syscalls (in my very uninformed opinion) seem all that difficult to implement, even without a userland

[Cthulhu_]

Is money the issue for this project, or finding the right people?

Or another point of view, if you put a lot of money into it, it becomes a commercial endeavour - would it still be for a good cause?

More armchair internet commenter devil's advocate discussion starters than any opinions of mine to be honest. But, there's a lot of projects that would benefit from no-strings-attached donations.

[velcrovan]

As far as I can tell, the nearest thing to a stated goal or mission is on their “About” page:

    Our main features are:

    * ReactOS is able to run Windows software
    * ReactOS is able to run Windows drivers
    * ReactOS looks-like Windows
    * ReactOS is free and open source

Building a replica of an old OS is a fun project, but if there was a purpose for it besides having an "is able to" replica, it would attract more people.

[drzaiusx11]

I wonder if any corporations that could benefit from this project could help bankroll it (of which I assume there are many.)

Wish they had a sponsorship listing on their GH page... I poked around and couldn't find one

[freedomben]

I suspect this would be a very risky proposition for them. The expense would be enormous, so it would either need to be a player with such huge economies of scale to make it work, or it would have to be a collection of businesses that in aggregate could make it economically feasible. I would suspect in most cases, it would be a lot cheaper to just port your software to modern Linux than to try to get react OS over the line. And that's before considering that a lot of the large players will be in contract situations with Microsoft that likely directly prevent this sort of thing

[zamadatix]

There's a sponsorship section but it just links to the donate page rather than a corporate focused sponsorship program. It seems most of the corporate activity in this space is around userspace compatibility rather than NT kernel compatibility, like CrossOver or Valve driving Wine and other codebases in that regard.

[doublerabbit]

Let's become billionaires together. You bankroll ReactOS and I'll bankroll HaikuOS.

[snvzz]

And I'll join in and bankroll AROS.

Together, we could bankroll Minix3 as well.

[forinti]

At this point, if I magically became filthy rich, I would invest in tools that facilitate migrating from Oracle to Postgresql, including Apex.