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> But I never had the impression that gaming was a particularly important focus of the project. > ReactOS is mostly about the reimplementation of an older NT k

> But I never had the impression that gaming was a particularly important focus of the project. > ReactOS is mostly about the reimplementation of an older NT kernel, with a focus on driver compatibility. Their ultimate goal is to be a drop-in replacement for Windows XP such that any driver written for XP would work. That's much more relevant to industrial applications where some device is controlled by an ancient computer because the vendor originally provided drivers for NT 5.0 or 5.1 which don't work on anything modern. Fifteen years ago, they could have focused on both the industrial and consumer use cases. There were a lot of people who really didn't want to leave Windows XP in 2010-11, even just for their personal use. Admittedly, FLOSS wasn't nearly as big of a thing back then like it is now. A larger share of GNU/Linux and BSD installs were on servers at the time, so it was a community mainly focused on commercial and industrial applications. Maybe that's what drove their focus.

ACS_Solver 9mo ago
It functionally is a project from fifteen-twenty years ago. Development activity was somewhat slow but steady but it largely fizzled out around I think 2018? The project tried to get political and financial support of the Russian government but failed to secure it, Aleksey Bragin transitioned to working in the crypto space, and of course with every year the number of potential users dependent on Windows 2000/XP is decreasing. I think by now ReactOS is best viewed as an enthusiast research / challenge project with no practical use, like GNU Hurd. Just as Hurd is interesting in terms of how kernels can be done, but isn't a viable candidate for practical use, ReactOS is now in the same category. Very interesting as an exercise in reimplementing NT from scratch using clean room techniques but no longer a system that has a shot at gaining any adoption.

ACS_Solver 9mo ago

It functionally is a project from fifteen-twenty years ago. Development activity was somewhat slow but steady but it largely fizzled out around I think 2018? The project tried to get political and financial support of the Russian government but failed to secure it, Aleksey Bragin transitioned to working in the crypto space, and of course with every year the number of potential users dependent on Windows 2000/XP is decreasing. I think by now ReactOS is best viewed as an enthusiast research / challenge project with no practical use, like GNU Hurd. Just as Hurd is interesting in terms of how kernels can be done, but isn't a viable candidate for practical use, ReactOS is now in the same category. Very interesting as an exercise in reimplementing NT from scratch using clean room techniques but no longer a system that has a shot at gaining any adoption.