ReactOS no threat to Windows
Summary: ReactOS, with sponsorship, might make it in some home offices and small businesses, but it will never get past that niche, and like Windows it will need support. It won't be free.
ReactOS is an implementation of Windows Server 2003, still in alpha stage, and very interesting.
But it is no threat to Windows. None at all. Especially compared with Linux.
Here's why. Sponsors.
Linux has big corporate sponsors behind it, starting with IBM and Google, companies which depend on the software, which run it in scaled installations, and make money off it.
React can't even think of going there. (Unless, say, HP endorsed it, and that's not going to happen.)
There's a second reason React is going nowhere. It's server code. Servers need support, hands-on support, for updates, for changes, for bug fixes. When your Web page reads "long term plans" with a big n/a under it, as that of ReactOS does, I'm not trusting my business to it, are you?
If we had an open source Windows desktop, compatible with XP, you might have something, but not with a server. Especially if it were free as in beer.
In rhapsodizing about the wonders of ReactOS John Dvorak praises its drivers and moans about the Windows registry. Good points, but these are essentially desktop functions, not server functions.
ReactOS, with sponsorship, might make it in some home offices and small businesses, but it will never get past that niche, and like Windows it will need support. It won't be free.
Which brings up a final point. Bugs. Is React going to copy Windows' bugs? Of course not, but is it going to be vulnerable to the same sorts of bugs? Could be.
If I'm going to look at a new desktop OS for a threat to Microsoft Windows, I'll look at the iPhone.
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Talkback
Bugs
They have to, for compatibility reasons. If they don't they're dead in the water.
Of course if they do, they're shark bait. They can't get away with the same bugs Microsoft does, even though not having them will be fatal.
re:Bugs
It should be pointed out, though, that there are "bugs" and there are "undocumented features". ReactOS need not duplicate bugs, not even for compatibility reasons. Bugs make things break. Bugs're baaad, m'kaayy?
As for "undocumented features," these are simply bugs (or design flaws) that you depend on. An example is Excel's date handling.
Personally, YBK, I don't think not having the bugs would be fatal. But you do need to determine which of those "features" you're going to keep, and whether they can be handled by some compatibility mode.
My views
perhaps you need a machine with Splashtop
I thought ReactOS had been pretty much in the current state for about 3 years ... an idea without momentum.
Having moved to Ubuntu for my desktop about two weeks ago, I can say there's a very real alternative to Windows today - I never expected it to be so painless. MS are just very lucky than many corporates have invested millions of dollars in Windows deployment and update technologies - if just a fraction of them gave Linux a proper test run, I think they would be surprised how much less the real cost is (ownership, update, etc) and how well accepted it is by the typical Browser, E-mail, wordprocessor users who account for a very large %age of desktop users.
confusing title
Microsoft actually introduced limitations to NT workstation 4.0 to prevent it being used as a server, because their server sales were being hurt.
This article really doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
A purchasable support system will grow around Reactos, just like any other free software (like Linux).
Threat or no threat?
It's a bit early to make any pronouncements regarding ReacOS's threathood, IMHO. You may wind up eating crow. Especially since there are a LOT of people out there who don't like the direction Windows has taken, yet don't want to go the Linux route.
"Server" simply means "we're not putting a lot of work into the paint job [i]yet[/i] 'cause we're busy working on the engine." Don't expect that to last forever.
With Microsoft pissing off customers left and right, they could very well drive developers to ReactOS (especially talented techies who discover that they can actually have a say in development). Ballmer may find himself caught between an Open Source rock and a Software Libre hard place in five years (and we might as well add a dropping anvil from overhead due to free Office replacements). Add another five years for "enterprise" adoption. By 2020 Microsoft could conceivably go from 800lb gorilla to just another chimp.
ReactOS needs a channel
If they get one I might feel differently.
Not yet, they don't
ReactOS at version 0.3.4. now. When I last downloaded it, it might have been at 0.2.something, and I was just jazzed that it loaded at all.
When there's a product, THEN they need a channel. When all they've got is a project and day jobs to hold on to, what they need is publicity. Any publicity will do, even a pundit who's jumping about a dozen guns by saying they're no threat to Windows in their infancy and they need a channel right now when they're only about two steps removed from a raw idea. Publicity begets interest, interest begets participants, participants beget code, and code will get them a channel.
To that end, you're doing them a fantastic favor. Any publicity is good publicity, so long as they spell your name right.
ReactOS. ReactOS. ReactOS. ReactOS.
Dana, just remember one fact
Oh do they?
MANY intelligent people are _not_ motivated by financial gains. The techies and nerds who work on Wine, ReactOS, parts of BSD and Linux, and countless other open-source projects are not being funded by big business. They're often not being directly funded by anybody--and some of these projects have been going strong for decades.
There are three reasons why there has not been a serious challenge to Microsoft's hold on the OS market:
1) Other OSes are not as easy to use and most people using computers today need user-friendliness more than elegance
2) Microsoft buys out successful competition and either absorbs or eliminates it
3) All of the 3rd-party applications that people need in order to get work done are simply not available for or are not stable under alternative operating systems.
ReactOS is striving the be cheap and compatible. People will continue to put effort into it either out of love for programming or disdain for MS. Once their work is complete, and especially if it is compatible with VISTA/7 some day, it may very well become a serious threat to MS.
RE: ReactOS no threat to Windows
Of course putting a different UI on the front might help (speed of development and use) but then the people who didn't want to go Linux would be as scared of ReactOS.
Of course your comment about MS irritating people is interesting, why would you aspire to buy something which is emulating an apparently falling star ?
Surely only because the original product was great, but the company running it lost it's way. I think I missed the week that Windows was great. When it didn't take more than the current average PC horsepower to run it. When installing a new program didn't stand a good chance of breaking others. When vulnerabilities were not left known about for months or years. I simply don't see why anyone would aspire to emulate such a fundamentally flawed product - especially in the face of several very viable and popular alternatives (Linux, OSX, etc).
RE: ReactOS no threat to Windows
"It???s server code." SERVER CODE? Windows has a REAL SERVER OS? WinXP = Win2k3, WinVista = Win2k8. ReactOS is not more Server Code than any other WIndows like OS.
"Bugs" Hey as we state everywhere, WE ARE IN ALPHA Stadium. Bugs are everywhere of course.
"but it will never get past that niche, and like Windows it will need support. It won???t be free." ?????!!! Well Linux IS FREE, isnt it??!
RE: ReactOS no threat to Windows
- Don't give up the day job.
RE: ReactOS no threat to Windows
How can you consider ReactOS a server platform? Nowhere does it say that. In fact, the project states what it is: a windows NT clone capable of running windows binaries and drivers natively. The thing is, they are getting there by using server 03 as a base, since it's NT compatible. ReactOS is no more of a server OS than the 'iPhone' is a 'desktop OS'.
And your saying that it might be open to windows' 'bugs' again shows me (and I'm sure others) that you do not know how the open source community works. When blockers are found, they are almost always fixed, or at least given a GREAT deal of attention, by anyone working on the project, not just a small division of a company.
Please, I would ask that you discontinue posting things that make ZDNet and it's subscribers look like fools. And if you continue, have the decency to research what you are writing about, something critical to the field as I'm sure you learned at school (or did you go?).
FlyingIsFun1217
RE: ReactOS no threat to Windows
Hm....
Are you work for MS?
RE: ReactOS no threat to Windows
Let's just say that ReactOS or another grassroots project comes along, makes it to a stable release, and is nearly 100% compatible with 3rd-party Windows software. Systems vendors will stat loading it up on new systems for fee in order to lower prices and be competitive. End users will love it and MS sales will drop significantly.
not any time soon...
Why do i keep downloading it? boredom, and mild interest in what could potentially be a decent alternative "OS". i think it only supports fat16 partitions at the moment, or at least it did last time i downloaded it( i think it was v0.2.8). installer liked to fail frequently..but it is alpha ware, so it is kind of expected.