MS will want this to fail

[windowsphone7]

Microsoft is going to make you guys struggle as much as they possibly can, I think this OS could possibly be the only open source OS that has a chance to even compete with Windows on Desktop.

People loved XP, and a lot still use it. The issue will be advertising to the general public about a free windows. Most people may think it's crap cause it's free.

Best of luck to the project.

[Aeneas]

Welllll... I guess many, including MS, wanted, for a time, Linux to fail...

[cmoibenlepro]

Who knows what could happen in 5 years?

Maybe the beta will be released and the project will get momentum.
Microsoft can't control that.

[greenie]

They will want this project to fail. But they can't do anything to stop it as far as I'm aware. We don't need any code or machine code from them. ReactOs is not doing anything illegal. At the moment they probably don't care about reactos.
The worst thing they can do is remove documentation. Which will also harm anyone developing applications for windows. Also most of that information will be repeated elsewhere in websites and books.

[zed260]

i doubt they do anything most they could do is probably start putting in code in there own apps preventing things like office from running and stuff


but right now i highly doubt vary many if any in microsoft are even watching this progect (anyone with logs of ips visting this site could probably look for ones from microsoft and that tell you for sure)

i doubt microsoft would publicly say anything about this project ether that would likely lead to many ppl who dont know about reactos googling it

[mrugiero]

Zed is right, MS probably considers more intelligent to shut up right now and don't make publicity of the project, in other case, more devs probably would join the project.

[greenie]

I remember hearing about Microsoft products checking the registry for keys specific to wine and then blocking updates.
here is a link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(soft ... t_and_Wine

[andrewweb]

I remember hearing about Microsoft products checking the registry for keys specific to wine and then blocking updates.
here is a link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(soft ... t_and_Wine

Wow...

[serengeor]

Microsoft is going to make you guys struggle as much as they possibly can, I think this OS could possibly be the only open source OS that has a chance to even compete with Windows on Desktop.

Yeah.... in like next ten years or so, windows isn't stopping their development process you know?

Linux/unix on the other hand are competing with windows pretty much equally and sometimes even beating windows

This project has good intentions, and I want to wish developers best luck, tough making another OS from scratch that is similar to another looks awkward to me.

[andrewweb]

Microsoft is going to make you guys struggle as much as they possibly can, I think this OS could possibly be the only open source OS that has a chance to even compete with Windows on Desktop.

Yeah.... in like next ten years or so, windows isn't stopping their development process you know?

Linux/unix on the other hand are competing with windows pretty much equally and sometimes even beating windows

This project has good intentions, and I want to wish developers best luck, tough making another OS from scratch that is similar to another looks awkward to me.

Microsoft will probably try to sue us for patent infringement in a Texas court if it fears us.
It hasn't tried to yet, as we're not a threat.

[greenie]

I don't think they have any legal reason to sue us. We do not use windows binaries or source in anyway way. We just are implementing the public documented api in our own way. The implementation does not have to be identical just the results(hopefully).
I thought i remembered a case where the recreation of an api resulted in a lawsuit for Glide wrappers and technologies. Though it turns out a lawsuit was never made. They just made legal threats against the projects.
Edit:

Plus where and who is sued?
Would the lawsuit be in Russia? If i remember correctly Aleksey demonstrated reactos live to a government official that seemed to support the project.
Though I do not think there is any legal ground anyway.

[andrewweb]

I don't think they have any legal reason to sue us. We do not use windows binaries or source in anyway way. We just are implementing the public documented api in our own way. The implementation does not have to be identical just the results(hopefully).
I thought i remembered a case where the recreation of an api resulted in a lawsuit for Glide wrappers and technologies. Though it turns out a lawsuit was never made. They just made legal threats against the projects.
Edit:

Plus where and who is sued?
Would the lawsuit be in Russia? If i remember correctly Aleksey demonstrated reactos live to a government official that seemed to support the project.
Though I do not think there is any legal ground anyway.

Microsoft has Software Patents. However, they are only valid in the US.

[greenie]

there may be some patents on the algorithms though api can not be covered by patents.
API's can be covered by copyright laws. Though there are legal precedents which allow you to provide an identical API but not an identical implementation in code without breaching copyright.

Patents potentially could be a pain when there is no practical alternative to implement them. Though it is probably far and few between.

[andrewweb]

there may be some patents on the algorithms though api can not be covered by patents.
API's can be covered by copyright laws. Though there are legal precedents which allow you to provide an identical API but not an identical implementation in code without breaching copyright.

Patents potentially could be a pain when there is no practical alternative to implement them. Though it is probably far and few between.

They patented the FAT file system.

[vicmarcal]

there may be some patents on the algorithms though api can not be covered by patents.
API's can be covered by copyright laws. Though there are legal precedents which allow you to provide an identical API but not an identical implementation in code without breaching copyright.

Patents potentially could be a pain when there is no practical alternative to implement them. Though it is probably far and few between.

They patented the FAT file system.

Software is just patentable in USA.Rest of the world can use us.
Btw, we are not using FAT but something FAT-compatible, as our implementation looks like but it is not the same.
And then the question arise ¿are Cars patentables?