ReactOS 0.3.0 RC1 has been released. Get it from the download page; the changelog doesn't seem up yet, so no information on any improvements. As for the code audit, it is at 90.5% complete. Read the associated Wiki page for more information.
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Member since:2005-07-07
it's a bit unfair to say these things, isn't it?
first, Reactos is very new, and developed by just a few people. compare this to MS Windows, being worked on since what, 1990? and by how many fulltime engineers?
second, reactos is just copying windows. and as windows doesn't give much info about itself, they have to spend a lot of time figuring out how windows does stuff.
Compare this to linux, in serious development since before 2000 by several thousands of developers.
Compare apples to apples, and I think you can say the Linux Kernel is much more advanced than the current Windows Kernel.
As a DE and development environment, KDE is generally equal or ahead of Windows.
And well, Windows lacks most of the userland apps most linux distributions offer in the form of the GNU tools, so I guess that's another free software win.
OK, MS has some things better. MS Office, for example, kicks the free software offerings' asses. OO.o is too slow, and due to bad design very hard to develop for. Koffice would be easier to extend and turn into serious competition for MS Office, but apparently it's not sexy enough, big company's prefer throwing money in the black hole OO.o is.
Another plus for MS is the huge amount of apps available, tough that's not their accomplishment. And many of these apps have free and almost-as-good equivalents (apps like Kalzium, free on linux, are very expensive on windows...).
And of course, MS keeps its specifications closed and mangles many open protocols, so it is hard for non-microsoft users to interact with MS' products. Actually I would say that's a big no-no, but many people seem to see it as an advantage ("MS word can open MS word documents, OO.o cannot" - while OO does a nice job, and MS word is unable to open ODF files - while THAT is a official ISO standard file format!).
Member since:2005-07-07
Member since:2006-02-27
Microsoft Windows 1.0: Released 1985
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/WinHistoryDesktop.mspx
Linux began development in 1991
http://www.linux10.org/history/
KDE was founded in 1996
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Using_KDE_:_History_of_KDE
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2006-02-20
Member since:
2006-05-02
Comparing Windows (TM) and ReactOS or Wine shows clearly that free and open source software can't compete with proprietary software in any way. There are a lot of features on Microsoft (TM) Windows (TM) that are not supported by either ReactOS or Wine, and it is doubtful we'll ever see them implemented:
- Digital Rights Management
Because of this shortcoming, there's no way to restrict usage of the contents on your hard disk.
- Product Activation
You can't e.g. use your Microsoft (TM) Windows (TM) activation key to activate your copies of ReactOS and Wine as well, since neither of them provides a Product Activation feature.
- WinFS
Store your data as a searchable database. Although it is not yet supported by Microsoft (TM) Windows (TM) as well, it will be implemented in Windows (TM) before either ReactOS or Wine.
I don't get why people still believe in free and open source software.
Def
Microsoft and Windows are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corp.
Def and Detlef Niehof are not registered trademarks of Detlef Niehof.