News: 0180662172

  ARM Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life (Terry Pratchett, Jingo)

ReactOS Celebrates 30 Years (phoronix.com)

(Tuesday January 27, 2026 @05:00AM (BeauHD) from the happy-birthday dept.)


[1]jeditobe writes:

> ReactOS, the open-source operating system aimed at binary compatibility with Windows, recently marked [2]its 30th anniversary . Launched in 1996, ReactOS has focused on providing a free alternative to Windows, with compatibility for Windows applications and drivers. Though still in development, it has [3]made significant progress in recent years , including improvements to USB support, better hardware compatibility, and enhanced performance with the release of version 0.4.15. The upcoming 0.4.16 release is set to introduce UEFI support, KMDF and WDDM graphics driver support, marking a major step forward in ReactOS's development.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~jeditobe

[2] https://reactos.org/blogs/30yrs-of-ros/

[3] https://www.phoronix.com/news/ReactOS-30-Years-Old



Fr1st P0sT! (Score:2)

by bgarcia ( 33222 )

I don't think I've ever seen an article sit around this long with no comments.

There was once a programmer who was attached to the court of the
warlord of Wu. The warlord asked the programmer: "Which is easier to design:
an accounting package or an operating system?"
"An operating system," replied the programmer.
The warlord uttered an exclamation of disbelief. "Surely an
accounting package is trivial next to the complexity of an operating
system," he said.
"Not so," said the programmer, "when designing an accounting package,
the programmer operates as a mediator between people having different ideas:
how it must operate, how its reports must appear, and how it must conform to
the tax laws. By contrast, an operating system is not limited my outside
appearances. When designing an operating system, the programmer seeks the
simplest harmony between machine and ideas. This is why an operating system
is easier to design."
The warlord of Wu nodded and smiled. "That is all good and well, but
which is easier to debug?"
The programmer made no reply.
-- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"