Will ReactOS ever reach the same compatibility level as Wind

[Ssj754KDylan]

I wonder if ReactOS will reach the Windows NT 6.0 codebase in the future.


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[yourepicfailure]

They haven't reached proper 2003/NT5.2 compatibility and that's their first goal.

So not for a while.

[Ssj754KDylan]

They really need to get working on trying to get Firefox 49 and up to start!


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[MrBurgerKing]

The current goal isn't to be compatible with Windows because that's not feasible, it's to be compatible with NT 5.2. Windows is incredibly complex, and achieving anything resembling compatibility through reverse engineering is huge. It's not Windows so it will never be completely, but it remains to be seen how close they can get.
It's an amazing project and really fun to play around with, but not for daily driving. For something free and open source to run modern apps on modern hardware, check out Linux distros and derivatives. ReactOS shares a lot of code with WINE, a compatibility layer for Linux. It won't let you run every Windows app flawlessly, but like ReactOS it's good for specifically compatible apps when alternatives aren't suitable.

[Ssj754KDylan]

Upgrading the codebase may be necessary if you wanna test Microsoft Office 2013!


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[AlphaBeta]

Developing a complex operating system is not a one man job, and while Windows is constantly evolving, thanks to hundreds of full-time programmers at Microsoft's disposal, ReactOS is mostly a volunteer project with most people working on it in their free time.

They really need to get working on trying to get Firefox 49 and up to start!

Upgrading the codebase may be necessary if you wanna test Microsoft Office 2013!

Why not take the time and contribute some code instead of telling them what to do? Remember, you get it for free...

The current goal isn't to be compatible with Windows because that's not feasible, it's to be compatible with NT 5.2.

Not quite sure what you mean by this. How is NT 5.2 not Windows?

[JimOlive]

The current goal isn't to be compatible with Windows because that's not feasible, it's to be compatible with NT 5.2.

Isn't NT 5.2 Windows Server 2003?

[MrBurgerKing]

Sorry, by 'windows' I meant 'fully compatible with every piece of hardware and software ever made for any version of Windows'.

Upgrading the codebase may be necessary if you wanna test Microsoft Office 2013!


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Again, that's not the project's current goal. If anyone wants to run Office 2013 or Firefox, there are already alternatives to Windows. If you really want to see compatibility improve, feel free to donate or contribute.
https://reactos.org/participation
https://wiki.winehq.org/Main_Page#Contribute

[yourepicfailure]

and achieving anything resembling compatibility through reverse engineering is huge.

And clarify that a little.

RoS follows strict guidelines to comply with reverse-engineering laws. As such everything is essentially rewritten from "scratch" striving to reduce reliance on decompiled code as much as possible both for legal reasons and for the goal of portability as NT. All while being based on said decompiled code.

Therefore RoS may never have the same quirks as 'true' windows. And, in turn, may never have proper compatibility even with NT52.

[Voyambar]

and achieving anything resembling compatibility through reverse engineering is huge.

And clarify that a little.

RoS follows strict guidelines to comply with reverse-engineering laws. As such everything is essentially rewritten from "scratch" striving to reduce reliance on decompiled code as much as possible both for legal reasons and for the goal of portability as NT. All while being based on said decompiled code.

Therefore RoS may never have the same quirks as 'true' windows. And, in turn, may never have proper compatibility even with NT52.

Reverse engineering is legal though under DMCA laws so what are they complying with?

[MrBurgerKing]

Reverse engineering is legal though under DMCA laws so what are they complying with?

The code that makes up Windows is protected by copyright, so modifying or redistributing any of it could be considered infringement. But creating a program from scratch that doesn't use any copyrighted code but does the same things is not, as copyright does not extend to any "idea, procedure, process, system, or method of operation" contained by the work.
So you can write code that does the same things as Windows, but you can't use Windows code. Since ReactOS doesn't use Windows code, it will never behave exactly like Windows code.

In the mid 2000s, a developer claimed ReactOS contained copyrighted Microsoft code. The contributor claimed it was similar because there was only one way to accomplish the function, and should be considered a re-implementation, not copied. So the organizers audited the code, and required contributors to agree to clean room development policies - where the authors don't see decompiled code.

What is and isn't considered infringement also depends on jurisdiction. For example, software and design (like the taskbar) can be patented in USA.

However, what is and isn't protected may change. In Android, Google made it's own version of Java, sharing the same names, organization, and functionality as real Java, but with it's own code made from scratch. Oracle sued, and while the district court and jury ruled in Google's favour, the Federal Circuit recently overturned both rulings, claiming that simply the structure, sequence, and organization of API packages are not a method of operation and entitled to copyright protection:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/201 ... opyrights/
This, of course, has huge implications for tech, and puts a lot of both open and closed source software at risk.

[RentedMule]

No. In short, MFC, ATL, VB runtime, etc etc ad infinitum will never be implemented to make it a compatible Windows platform.

[AlphaBeta]

Reverse engineering is legal though under DMCA laws so what are they complying with?

Maybe you can legally reverse engineer a product, but deriving a product directly from reverse engineering would still be copyright infringement. That's why in clean room design, the same person can't both examine a feature in the original product and implement it in the other product, since it can't be guaranteed that the person wouldn't use specific constructs (even subconsciously) that the original product's developer has used.

[leomoskva]

ReactOS is a good project to create portfolio. Yes, some people like Bragin telling that "it's Windows alternative", but let see the facts - no more than reserarch project.

[Winins]

I don't even recommend using ReactOS at all, it is very unstable and can crash on you any time.

Offtopic Comment

50th post!

[AlphaBeta]

I don't even recommend using ReactOS at all, it is very unstable and can crash on you any time.

That's hardly surprising.

They're talking about ReactOS 0.4.12 (even if we're just Alpha)

[MrBurgerKing]

I don't even recommend using ReactOS at all, it is very unstable and can crash on you any time.

It depends. It's still very much a work in progress alpha build, so it's not intended to be used for daily driving. But it's great for running verified compatible applications on verified compatible hardware, especially considering that it's FOSS and a little simpler to set up then WINE on Linux. The list of what works with ReactOS will continue to grow.

[TI-Man]

Honestly, if people stopped laughing at ReactOS long enough to help even a little, it might grow faster.

[autumnbreeze]

Probably Never, if you have seen drauga 1's video on it you would have seen how unstable it was. for instance if you let the installer sit idle for about 30 seconds in vmware it would lock up. i cant even get it to boot correctly half the time!

[AlphaBeta]

Probably Never, if you have seen drauga 1's video on it you would have seen how unstable it was. for instance if you let the installer sit idle for about 30 seconds in vmware it would lock up. i cant even get it to boot correctly half the time!

They're talking about ReactOS 0.4.12 (even if we're just Alpha)

[Visual917]

The current goal isn't to be compatible with Windows because that's not feasible, it's to be compatible with NT 5.2.

Isn't NT 5.2 Windows Server 2003?

Yeap, also Windows XP x64.

[cantasan99]

Hi everyone, I'm coming from ReactOS Community. ReactOS has the spirit, and witnessing its development is just wonderful. Generally, less than 20-30 simultaneously active developers, this huge feat is achieved. And this is why I have got away from Windows betas.

It was 0.3.16 release when I joined the community, and it was major bugs here and there. I remember Word 2003 crashing entire OS when you typed just some words and clicked a few buttons. Attempt to copy SimCity 3000 Unlimited to ReactOS from shell (which was being rewritten at that time) resulted in hang of it for minutes, which forced me to use Command Prompt. Game was playable but when launching several disasters one after one, you could crash the game or entire OS again. This is just a few of countless user experience.

After fixing some critical kernel and Win32k bugs, improving drivers, finishing explorer_new (which was lacking many features at that time), adding NTFS and ext2 read support, fixing of some network bugs, 0.4 was finally achieved after nearly two years from 0.3.17. The real achievement is in fact, new contributors/developers, increasing donations and more users. With switch to 3 month release cycle and finally deploying Git, ReactOS gained much momentum than ever. Checkout ReactOS Community Changelogs to learn more about what has been brought since 0.4.1.

Is it enough? Not really. We are almost at the point that major bugs in the depths are surfacing and fixing them is becoming more urgent, but this kind of flaws are really hard to resolve. Our pace is better but again, not enough to eat the deer in just one piece. Still, comparing to 0.4, ReactOS has seen major progress when it comes to hardware/software compatibility and stability. Stay tuned to see what's coming along.

NOTE: This post was in my draft for months.