[TomOfTTB]

Kudos to the creators for keeping at it. But in the end I don't see if being of much consequence.

If it ever does get out of Alpha and is viable than Microsoft will likely stop at nothing to bury it with lawsuits. They'd have to because it would be a free version of their core product that, by definition, wouldn't be susceptible to all the viruses and malware that Windows is.

So the bottom line is it could have a lot of useful applications but you really couldn't have enough faith in its future to use it for those applications.

[calcnerd256]

Why wouldn't it be susceptible to malware? The fact that that question is even worth asking demonstrates that you've abused the phrase "by definition"

[coderdude]

I would say it could still be susceptible to malware since a lot of it gets installed on account of user stupidity, but anything that requires exploitation of a specific memory address will fail. Of course though, I think the latest version of Windows has protection against that as well by making it difficult or impossible to determine what addresses will be used when a program is ran. (Maybe, my memory of that is admittedly fuzzy.)

[Daniel_Newby]

Why would Microsoft care? Their revenue core is the shell, app frameworks, apps, not the kernel and a few system utilities. If by some miracle ReactOS manages to get major public uptake on the strength of kernel superiority, Microsoft can simply share in the fun.

[thebigshane]

I'm no Microsoft-hater but that really doesn't sound like Microsoft.

[Daniel_Newby]

No, I guess it doesn't. They could do it, but NIH seems to rule.