30 Years of ReactOS
Funding, Sponsorship, and Motivation
- Several commenters fantasize about major funding (even billionaire-level patronage) but question whether money or scarce expert contributors are the main bottleneck.
- Corporate sponsorship is seen as unlikely: big firms already standardize on Linux or Windows, gain little from NT clone compatibility, and may even be contractually constrained.
- Some argue rich companies could easily fund ReactOS “for the public good” without using it, but others say that without a stronger, more practical mission than “can run Windows software,” it won’t attract serious backing.
ReactOS vs Windows, Linux, and Wine
- Many view ReactOS primarily as an impressive engineering and reverse‑engineering exercise, similar in spirit to GNU Hurd.
- For practical use, commenters point to three simpler options:
- Use Windows 11 despite its flaws and ads.
- Use older Windows versions for retro hardware/software.
- Use Linux + Wine/Proton, which already runs much modern Windows software (especially games).
- ReactOS’s unique aspirational advantage is kernel/driver compatibility, which Wine doesn’t target, but its NT 5.x focus (Win2000/XP era) is now seen as decades behind current user expectations.
Technical Ambition and Feasibility
- Some discuss the deep architectural mismatch between NT and Linux, arguing that “NT compatibility in Linux” at the driver level would require major kernel changes and a stable driver ABI Linux intentionally avoids.
- Others note that ReactOS implements internal NT APIs more completely than Wine in some areas, but this raises little clear practical benefit yet.
AI, Clean-Room Concerns, and Legal Risk
- Multiple comments warn that using LLMs (Copilot, Claude, etc.) could taint ReactOS’s clean‑room status if models were trained on leaked Windows source.
- There’s debate over whether such taint is a project‑specific issue or a general problem for all code written with these tools.
- Some see AI coding as immature or legally risky “elephant in a china shop,” especially for a project that explicitly requires contributors to avoid leaked Microsoft code.
Outlook and Sentiment
- Enthusiasts hope ReactOS eventually becomes a viable escape hatch from modern Windows, or at least a preservation platform for NT.
- Skeptics argue its adoption window has largely closed; the project is respected, but likely to remain a niche, hobbyist, and educational effort.