

ReactOS "ready approximately for 80% of real world usage" - userulluipeste
http://www.osnews.com/story/25155/ReactOS_Demonstrated_to_Russian_President_Medvedev

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BrandonMTurner
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.

~~~
pavs
From <http://www.reactos.org/en/about.html>

ReactOS 0.3.13 is still in under heavy development (alpha stage) and is not
ready for everyday use.

~~~
runjake
If you read the linked article, it quotes the main ReactOS engineer as saying
it was "ready for 80% of real world use". This is what Brandon is addressing.

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SwellJoe
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.

~~~
rjd
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.

~~~
thwarted
_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._

Is this anything _other_ than application support?

~~~
kstenerud
\- Better GUI integration \- Standardized and complete API going beyond simple
libc and POSIX (which are quite long in the tooth now) \- Access control lists
\- Nicer driver system and better driver support

To name a few.

~~~
thwarted
Exactly which things have better GUI integration on Windows, which are _not_
related to application support? In fact, what does "GUI integration" even
mean?

The Windows API is standardized? I suppose, but only because Microsoft is the
only one who ships anything even close to a complete implementation of it. So
it's standard on the one thing that ships it.

I won't speak to if libc or POSIX is better or worse, but if they're going to
be called "simple", the argument can be made that that's the UNIX philosophy,
and a more valid critique would be if they were not simple and didn't adhere
to the UNIX philosophy. Both Windows and Linux's libc/POSIX are solid APIs and
are standardized, and the latter is largely documented where they diverge.

Linux supports POSIX access control lists. I actually find the Windows ACL
support to be extremely subpar: the command line utilities are tough to use
from cmd.exe, and the GUI for handling ACLs is brutal, albeit functional. The
getfacl and setfacl Linux utilities are not super fantastic either, but they
are there.

What's the qualification for a "nicer" driver system, that isn't better driver
support?

~~~
wvenable
> What's the qualification for a "nicer" driver system, that isn't better
> driver support?

Windows effectively has user-installable drivers and Linux, for intents and
purposes, does not. In fact, Windows has the equivalent of apt-get for drivers
-- a central auto-updating repository. Comparably, Linux is a backwards
wasteland when it comes to drivers and driver management.

~~~
thwarted
I can't remember the last time I had to install a driver using anything other
than apt-get or yum on my Linux desktop or laptop -- although I do have a hand
configured xorg.conf that I've been using for years. The majority of drivers
are available with the kernel, and those that are not and are popular are
packaged up by the distribution maintainers.

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chrisballinger
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.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Their supplied 0.3.13 image blue screens on bootup on the current release of
VirtualBox,

------
xyzzyz
Why not link to the original source?

<http://www.reactos.org/en/news_page_67.html>

It contains much more information.

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runjake
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.

------
jigs_up
the last 5 percent is the hardest

~~~
housel
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle>

------
teyc
meanwhile Windows8 wouldn't even load the desktop until it is required. The
Windows as we know it is turning into legacy OS just to run old apps.

~~~
watmough
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.

~~~
teyc
Windows 8 desktop to be 'just another app,' says Microsoft exec

[http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219680/Windows_8_des...](http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219680/Windows_8_desktop_to_be_just_another_app_says_Microsoft_exec)

