Word-of-mouth advertisement

[turtleman]

Hi everyone, I am new to ReactOS, which I discovered early in April. I contributed a small donation and have been testing out builds, but my programming skill is limited so that's about all I can do at the moment (although I am currently learning, and maybe in the distant future I can do something with regard to that). However, I have been trying to let more people know about the operating system. When doing word-of-mouth advertisement, what do you think would be the most helpful thing I can say, other than a basic description of what it is?

[Yuntian Zhang]

Because we are in alpha stage, I don't think it is a good idea to tell normal user to try ReactOS. People will get frustrated when they hope they can use it like the Windows and find out it is not true. It will be really nice to tell your friends about ReactOS when we have the first stable version. But right now please don't tell them, and they won't have any bad memory about ReactOS. On the other hand, tell it to those who know how to write code. Tell them if ReactOS become usable, since everybody can get the source code easily, it will be a great fun to build a modified os while have the ability to run Windows programs. I think this is the most important reason that people like to write programs: it is fun.

[turtleman]

Oh no! I already told a bunch of people

I will cut that out now I guess.

[The_French_Rat]

Oh no! I already told a bunch of people

I will cut that out now I guess.

Don't worry. You could ask them(if they have programming skills) to help develop ReactOS.

[milon]

And if they don't, just make sure they know it's alpha. We haven't yet hit all the goals we're aiming for. That'll come with time.

[turtleman]

Yes, I always make sure they know it is alpha

[DOSGuy]

I think it's generally good for as many people to know about ReactOS as possible, as long as their expectations are properly set. They need to understand that ROS is an alpha stage, which means that it's a work in progress with a lot of missing functionality and stability issues. They should also understand that the project is being developed by a relatively small group of developers, which is why it has taken so long to get to where it is. Finally, they should be advised that significant, important progress has been made recently, and they can help the project develop even faster by contributing code or bug reports and making donations, and by telling other people about the project so that they can contribute code or bug reports and make donations.

What ReactOS is, will be, and what we can all do to help it can be explained in just a few minutes. Don't just do a drive-by "ReactOS is a free Windows-compatible operating system". The pitch will be that easy when the project hits 1.0. Until then, take the time to give a proper review of ROS.

[Chompjil]

I'm giving a presentaion about RoS at my school soon, and I'll tell them the risks and about how it is an alpha

[milon]

Nice.
Will you have a live (virtual machine) demonstration? Or a video clip? Or is it just a verbal report?
What level is your school? High school? College? Other?

[Chompjil]

I'm at a middle school (im 13 )
Its a powerpoint, but I'll ask If I could get one of the computers to do a VM demo

[DOSGuy]

I wish we had cool presentations like that when I was in middle school.