Well, let's clear it up once and for all. I don't want this topic to be brought again and again.
On Apr 23, 2010, at 5:47 AM, James Tabor wrote:
ReactOS is about moving forward and taking chances with
"The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows.", this is from our website, and it's not something new really.
ReactOS is about making an OS which works. It has been this way since the moment it was founded. ReactOS is NOT: 1. about comparing epeens; 2. NOT a fundamental research project (those are done by universities and often funded by government); 3. NOT a theoretical OS project (at least the kernel architecture we use has been developed by other people, ReactOS doesn't aim creating a totally new architecture, though it may be a target of some branch);
innovations from learned information then moving away to make it work even better. Personally, I hope someone will take up where this left off and move on.
James, what is your goal with ReactOS project? Maybe I and other people don't understand it? Explain it then to us, inspire us. However, if your goal is theoretical OS research, then please understand that it's not ReactOS primary objective and never was. It's fine and appreciated that you do this, but you can't demand your results to be used without any quality assurance at all.
ReactOS is a unique and very important project which could get immediate usage throughout whole world. My own interest in ReactOS is purely practical at the moment: I want a free, opensource, Windows- compatible OS which I can install on my machines. My research interests are different (functional/logical languages, parallel computations, to name a few), I have publications about those and I am preparing a Ph.D. thesis. I'm not going to invent a new kernel architecture right now, I haven't got even one publication related to the kernel mode architecture and design (well, except maybe being a scientific editor of a russian edition of "Beautiful Architecture" book).
Good luck!