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I'm not so sure. Why would Microsoft want to shut this down? I suspect most of Microsoft's revenue comes from business and OEM licenses - neither of which are

I'm not so sure. Why would Microsoft want to shut this down? I suspect most of Microsoft's revenue comes from business and OEM licenses - neither of which are likely to switch to ReactOS. Even if ReactOS was stable and perfectly compatible with Windows, I doubt many people would switch to it. I don't have any data on what portion of users have installed an operating system on their personal computer, but I bet it's extremely small. ReactOS isn't competing with Microsoft's most profitable software. By allowing ReactOS to exist, non-Windows users are more likely to stay within the Windows ecosystem. Microsoft still retains control of the development direction for the platform and they can still sell their software to those users. Even ignoring the bad publicity Microsoft would get from the tech community for shutting down ReactOS, I just don't see a good reason for them to do it. It seems much more likely to me that Microsoft will use only legal action so far as to ensure ReactOS never becomes a viable "Windows killer", but I doubt they'll so far as to shut it down altogether.

kokey 6y ago
I also think the only way for Windows to survive long term is to allow evolutionary branches and clones of it, like how the AT&T and BSD UNIXes and later on Linux and SysV and later on Darwin and Android managed to remain so successful.
grawprog 6y ago
>I suspect most of Microsoft's revenue comes from business and OEM licenses - neither of which are likely to switch to ReactOS. Even if ReactOS was stable and perfectly compatible with Windows, I doubt many people would switch to it I see Microsoft leaving ReactOS alone until it starts biting into that pie. If manufacturers started making deals to have ReactOS pre-installed on machines, that's when Microsoft's going to go in. I doubt they're going to bother otherwise though.

kokey 6y ago

I also think the only way for Windows to survive long term is to allow evolutionary branches and clones of it, like how the AT&T and BSD UNIXes and later on Linux and SysV and later on Darwin and Android managed to remain so successful.

grawprog 6y ago

>I suspect most of Microsoft's revenue comes from business and OEM licenses - neither of which are likely to switch to ReactOS. Even if ReactOS was stable and perfectly compatible with Windows, I doubt many people would switch to it I see Microsoft leaving ReactOS alone until it starts biting into that pie. If manufacturers started making deals to have ReactOS pre-installed on machines, that's when Microsoft's going to go in. I doubt they're going to bother otherwise though.