7 ms·

I sometimes daydream about becoming a billionaire and bankrolling this project to completion. Would do the world so much good.

drzaiusx11 9mo ago
I wonder if any corporations that could benefit from this project could help bankroll it (of which I assume there are many.) Wish they had a sponsorship listing on their GH page... I poked around and couldn't find one
- freedomben 9mo ago
  I suspect this would be a very risky proposition for them. The expense would be enormous, so it would either need to be a player with such huge economies of scale to make it work, or it would have to be a collection of businesses that in aggregate could make it economically feasible. I would suspect in most cases, it would be a lot cheaper to just port your software to modern Linux than to try to get react OS over the line. And that's before considering that a lot of the large players will be in contract situations with Microsoft that likely directly prevent this sort of thing
  - genewitch 9mo ago
    apple, nvidia, microsoft, google, facebook, amazon, broadcom(!!!!), TSMC(!), and tesla all have way more than a trillion dollars. >$1,000,000,000,000.00 They could give this project $10,000,000 per year for a decade and not notice. we're talking "slap on the wrist fine" levels of money here.
    - freedomben 9mo ago
      but why would any of those companies want to use ReactOS? They already build on top of Linux, except maybe Microsoft, but certainly Microsoft wouldn't want to fund ReactOS... If I were an executive at those places and somebody proposed ReactOS to replace our foundation, I'd assume they were joking/trolling and would laugh (and genuinely find it funny)
      - genewitch 8mo ago
        who said they need to use reactOS or "replace their foundation", which is a term i cannot parse, i don't think anyone wants to use this as a server platform (that was my default assumption of that phrase.) this is "we have a market cap of 61,271,506 times the median household income in the USA, we can afford to peel off 1/500,000th (0.0002%) of our market cap per year to make this project awesome because we like this project and want to see it grow"
        freedomben 8mo ago
        Well if that's the case, then what you're arguing for is charity. That's fine, but the upthread topic has been about business case. If we're looking at it as charity and not a business investment, then it's a much different conversation. I'd certainly love if companies did things like this and would highly applaud it.
      - drzaiusx11 8mo ago
        There's still a ton of critical, often custom-written (read: hard to replace), corporate Windows software out there that still needs to run. If Microsoft continues their further decline of Microsoft Windows releases then a free alternative starts to look more attractive. Linux+Wine is definitely a good option today but compatibility shims add complexity and not all shops run Linux or want to.
        genewitch 8mo ago
        i just want to program my old motorola radios without having to deal with virtualbox windows 98 VMs, you know? one can transcribe "motorola radio" for "bosch end mill from 1993" or "thermoplastic former from 1999"
    - drzaiusx11 8mo ago
      Valve has already proven that one moderately-sized corporate contributor added to your moon-shot FOSS project can get you places. (And Valve isn't anywhere near in size for the FANG+ corps you listed)
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
- zamadatix 9mo ago
  There's a sponsorship section but it just links to the donate page rather than a corporate focused sponsorship program. It seems most of the corporate activity in this space is around userspace compatibility rather than NT kernel compatibility, like CrossOver or Valve driving Wine and other codebases in that regard.
sho_hn 9mo ago
I still think Windows app compat for Linux (i.e. as Wine does and Valve productized with a gaming focus) is the better solution since it offers a true upgrade path out. I realize ReactOS has a potentially wider useful scope (I think device driver compat is part of what they're attempting to do, so it'd offer a solution to keeping niche HW running) but I think it's just a smaller audience.
- snvzz 9mo ago
  >it'd offer a solution to keeping niche HW running Preservation. It ensures WinNT survives as a platform even if Microsoft abandons it, which some would argue the present state of Win11 counts as doing.
  - godzillabrennus 9mo ago
    Windows 11 is the enshitification late stage advertisement economy product that no one asked for, and everyone in the C Suite at Microsoft is excited about. Probably the only thing they are more excited for is yet another terrible branding decision.
    - genewitch 8mo ago
      i don't get this take. i've been on win11 since the closed "beta" (i think, it's been a real long time). i wrote guides on how to "fix" the most common and also tricky issues with the upgrade path from win10 to win11, as well as guides from 7/8 to winten. I have no ads or any other nonsense on my computer. i can do an OBS screenshare on discord if you'd like to verify that. https://i.imgur.com/xldGfTc.png https://i.imgur.com/xldGfTc.png and also https://i.imgur.com/BkO4z9T.png https://i.imgur.com/BkO4z9T.png to deflect that claim, too -> https://i.imgur.com/59hmp45.png https://i.imgur.com/59hmp45.png however, i should note that i actually don't like windows 11 at all, but for different reasons. for the first two years or so, third party apps would crash to desktop if a folder had a literal "@"[0] in the name. That was patched on the "big patch" that a lot of people complained about, about 8-10 months ago. Currently i have another issue, for brevity's sake, i'll just list these two. If i reboot, but don't log in, my computer will freeze. if i log in fast (within about 5 seconds of the login screen accepting input (enter, mouseclick, etc)), and get to the desktop, if i walk away, computer will freeze. My computer freezes (hard freeze, reset button/power button to fix) if it is idle. it's the silliest thing i've ever seen, surpassing even crashing with "@" in the directory name. my fix? I run an idle game (nomad idle or idle pins) and that stops it from crashing forever. But once a month i wake up to a hard-locked computer because of an automatic update + reboot. ugh. [0] i think the newer windows terminal and/or the newer powershell API used to assume an "@" was something else, on powershell, it turns green and autofills stuff like "@Alias" and "@args". My assumption is they didn't sanitize it and let powershell hook everything when that's just silly. Windows 11 is silly.
doublerabbit 9mo ago
Let's become billionaires together. You bankroll ReactOS and I'll bankroll HaikuOS.
- snvzz 9mo ago
  And I'll join in and bankroll AROS. Together, we could bankroll Minix3 as well.
  - LoganDark 9mo ago
    Who wants to bankroll SerenityOS?
    - snvzz 9mo ago
      I don't think that one wants to be bankrolled. It'd go against its spirit.
    - drnick1 8mo ago
      Ladybird has quite a few corporate sponsors now and is progressing quite well. I built and tested the latest sources over the winter break and it sort of works already. I posted on HN from it.
      - snvzz 8mo ago
        Ladybird has detached itself from SerenityOS[0]. It is unfortunate it doesn't even run on SerenityOS anymore. This does at least partially eliminate the appeal. e.g. SerenityOS has its own decoders for PNG, JPEG and other image formats and they are not bad, but the boring libpng, etc. were adopted instead. It should be a net positive if not everybody uses the same implementations of everything. 0. https://ladybird.org/posts/fork/ https://ladybird.org/posts/fork/
      - LeFantome 8mo ago
        I am responding to you from Ladybird. It is indeed coming along quite well. Interestingly, if you run https://html5test.co https://html5test.co in Ladybird, you get a score of over 500. This is better than Firefox 60.
Cthulhu_ 9mo ago
Is money the issue for this project, or finding the right people? Or another point of view, if you put a lot of money into it, it becomes a commercial endeavour - would it still be for a good cause? More armchair internet commenter devil's advocate discussion starters than any opinions of mine to be honest. But, there's a lot of projects that would benefit from no-strings-attached donations.
- velcrovan 9mo ago
  As far as I can tell, the nearest thing to a stated goal or mission is on their “About” page: Our main features are: * ReactOS is able to run Windows software * ReactOS is able to run Windows drivers * ReactOS looks-like Windows * ReactOS is free and open source Building a replica of an old OS is a fun project, but if there was a purpose for it besides having an "is able to" replica, it would attract more people.
  - squeefers 9mo ago
    in the real world, most people use windows. most software that those people use is written for windows. if it can run windows exes out of the box, whilst not phoning home to microsoft, it becomes an attractive proposition. i want to get off windows but i dont want the headache of linux; to me its the only hope
    - velcrovan 9mo ago
      Sure, but Windows has moved a long ways since the version that they're attempting to replicate. And again, their bar for success "is able to run Windows programs" is not actually high enough to achieve a practical Windows replacement, even if going back to Windows 95 is all we wanted. It's interesting you mention Linux being a headache — it is, but there is an order of magnitude more people working full-time on just the Linux desktop experience than have ever even tried running ReactOS. That ratio would have to flip before the latter has a hope of being a useful Windows replacement. We’re much more likely to see Wine able to run 100% of Windows before ReactOS gets there.
forinti 8mo ago
At this point, if I magically became filthy rich, I would invest in tools that facilitate migrating from Oracle to Postgresql, including Apex.

drzaiusx11 9mo ago

I wonder if any corporations that could benefit from this project could help bankroll it (of which I assume there are many.) Wish they had a sponsorship listing on their GH page... I poked around and couldn't find one

freedomben 9mo ago
I suspect this would be a very risky proposition for them. The expense would be enormous, so it would either need to be a player with such huge economies of scale to make it work, or it would have to be a collection of businesses that in aggregate could make it economically feasible. I would suspect in most cases, it would be a lot cheaper to just port your software to modern Linux than to try to get react OS over the line. And that's before considering that a lot of the large players will be in contract situations with Microsoft that likely directly prevent this sort of thing
- genewitch 9mo ago
  apple, nvidia, microsoft, google, facebook, amazon, broadcom(!!!!), TSMC(!), and tesla all have way more than a trillion dollars. >$1,000,000,000,000.00 They could give this project $10,000,000 per year for a decade and not notice. we're talking "slap on the wrist fine" levels of money here.
  - freedomben 9mo ago
    but why would any of those companies want to use ReactOS? They already build on top of Linux, except maybe Microsoft, but certainly Microsoft wouldn't want to fund ReactOS... If I were an executive at those places and somebody proposed ReactOS to replace our foundation, I'd assume they were joking/trolling and would laugh (and genuinely find it funny)
    - genewitch 8mo ago
      who said they need to use reactOS or "replace their foundation", which is a term i cannot parse, i don't think anyone wants to use this as a server platform (that was my default assumption of that phrase.) this is "we have a market cap of 61,271,506 times the median household income in the USA, we can afford to peel off 1/500,000th (0.0002%) of our market cap per year to make this project awesome because we like this project and want to see it grow"
      - freedomben 8mo ago
        Well if that's the case, then what you're arguing for is charity. That's fine, but the upthread topic has been about business case. If we're looking at it as charity and not a business investment, then it's a much different conversation. I'd certainly love if companies did things like this and would highly applaud it.
    - drzaiusx11 8mo ago
      There's still a ton of critical, often custom-written (read: hard to replace), corporate Windows software out there that still needs to run. If Microsoft continues their further decline of Microsoft Windows releases then a free alternative starts to look more attractive. Linux+Wine is definitely a good option today but compatibility shims add complexity and not all shops run Linux or want to.
      - genewitch 8mo ago
        i just want to program my old motorola radios without having to deal with virtualbox windows 98 VMs, you know? one can transcribe "motorola radio" for "bosch end mill from 1993" or "thermoplastic former from 1999"
  - drzaiusx11 8mo ago
    Valve has already proven that one moderately-sized corporate contributor added to your moon-shot FOSS project can get you places. (And Valve isn't anywhere near in size for the FANG+ corps you listed)
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]
zamadatix 9mo ago
There's a sponsorship section but it just links to the donate page rather than a corporate focused sponsorship program. It seems most of the corporate activity in this space is around userspace compatibility rather than NT kernel compatibility, like CrossOver or Valve driving Wine and other codebases in that regard.

sho_hn 9mo ago

I still think Windows app compat for Linux (i.e. as Wine does and Valve productized with a gaming focus) is the better solution since it offers a true upgrade path out. I realize ReactOS has a potentially wider useful scope (I think device driver compat is part of what they're attempting to do, so it'd offer a solution to keeping niche HW running) but I think it's just a smaller audience.

snvzz 9mo ago
>it'd offer a solution to keeping niche HW running Preservation. It ensures WinNT survives as a platform even if Microsoft abandons it, which some would argue the present state of Win11 counts as doing.
- godzillabrennus 9mo ago
  Windows 11 is the enshitification late stage advertisement economy product that no one asked for, and everyone in the C Suite at Microsoft is excited about. Probably the only thing they are more excited for is yet another terrible branding decision.
  - genewitch 8mo ago
    i don't get this take. i've been on win11 since the closed "beta" (i think, it's been a real long time). i wrote guides on how to "fix" the most common and also tricky issues with the upgrade path from win10 to win11, as well as guides from 7/8 to winten. I have no ads or any other nonsense on my computer. i can do an OBS screenshare on discord if you'd like to verify that. https://i.imgur.com/xldGfTc.png https://i.imgur.com/xldGfTc.png and also https://i.imgur.com/BkO4z9T.png https://i.imgur.com/BkO4z9T.png to deflect that claim, too -> https://i.imgur.com/59hmp45.png https://i.imgur.com/59hmp45.png however, i should note that i actually don't like windows 11 at all, but for different reasons. for the first two years or so, third party apps would crash to desktop if a folder had a literal "@"[0] in the name. That was patched on the "big patch" that a lot of people complained about, about 8-10 months ago. Currently i have another issue, for brevity's sake, i'll just list these two. If i reboot, but don't log in, my computer will freeze. if i log in fast (within about 5 seconds of the login screen accepting input (enter, mouseclick, etc)), and get to the desktop, if i walk away, computer will freeze. My computer freezes (hard freeze, reset button/power button to fix) if it is idle. it's the silliest thing i've ever seen, surpassing even crashing with "@" in the directory name. my fix? I run an idle game (nomad idle or idle pins) and that stops it from crashing forever. But once a month i wake up to a hard-locked computer because of an automatic update + reboot. ugh. [0] i think the newer windows terminal and/or the newer powershell API used to assume an "@" was something else, on powershell, it turns green and autofills stuff like "@Alias" and "@args". My assumption is they didn't sanitize it and let powershell hook everything when that's just silly. Windows 11 is silly.

doublerabbit 9mo ago

Let's become billionaires together. You bankroll ReactOS and I'll bankroll HaikuOS.

snvzz 9mo ago
And I'll join in and bankroll AROS. Together, we could bankroll Minix3 as well.
- LoganDark 9mo ago
  Who wants to bankroll SerenityOS?
  - snvzz 9mo ago
    I don't think that one wants to be bankrolled. It'd go against its spirit.
  - drnick1 8mo ago
    Ladybird has quite a few corporate sponsors now and is progressing quite well. I built and tested the latest sources over the winter break and it sort of works already. I posted on HN from it.
    - snvzz 8mo ago
      Ladybird has detached itself from SerenityOS[0]. It is unfortunate it doesn't even run on SerenityOS anymore. This does at least partially eliminate the appeal. e.g. SerenityOS has its own decoders for PNG, JPEG and other image formats and they are not bad, but the boring libpng, etc. were adopted instead. It should be a net positive if not everybody uses the same implementations of everything. 0. https://ladybird.org/posts/fork/ https://ladybird.org/posts/fork/
    - LeFantome 8mo ago
      I am responding to you from Ladybird. It is indeed coming along quite well. Interestingly, if you run https://html5test.co https://html5test.co in Ladybird, you get a score of over 500. This is better than Firefox 60.

Cthulhu_ 9mo ago

Is money the issue for this project, or finding the right people? Or another point of view, if you put a lot of money into it, it becomes a commercial endeavour - would it still be for a good cause? More armchair internet commenter devil's advocate discussion starters than any opinions of mine to be honest. But, there's a lot of projects that would benefit from no-strings-attached donations.

velcrovan 9mo ago
As far as I can tell, the nearest thing to a stated goal or mission is on their “About” page: Our main features are: * ReactOS is able to run Windows software * ReactOS is able to run Windows drivers * ReactOS looks-like Windows * ReactOS is free and open source Building a replica of an old OS is a fun project, but if there was a purpose for it besides having an "is able to" replica, it would attract more people.
- squeefers 9mo ago
  in the real world, most people use windows. most software that those people use is written for windows. if it can run windows exes out of the box, whilst not phoning home to microsoft, it becomes an attractive proposition. i want to get off windows but i dont want the headache of linux; to me its the only hope
  - velcrovan 9mo ago
    Sure, but Windows has moved a long ways since the version that they're attempting to replicate. And again, their bar for success "is able to run Windows programs" is not actually high enough to achieve a practical Windows replacement, even if going back to Windows 95 is all we wanted. It's interesting you mention Linux being a headache — it is, but there is an order of magnitude more people working full-time on just the Linux desktop experience than have ever even tried running ReactOS. That ratio would have to flip before the latter has a hope of being a useful Windows replacement. We’re much more likely to see Wine able to run 100% of Windows before ReactOS gets there.

forinti 8mo ago

At this point, if I magically became filthy rich, I would invest in tools that facilitate migrating from Oracle to Postgresql, including Apex.