[hakfoo]

Sadly, the world does need one.

There are plenty of systems where you might have a $5 million piece of hardware, tied into a $1 million of revenue per day process, that's all driven by a very specific machine with a very specific version of Windows and very specific peripherals.

Being able to replace them as close to identically as possible is a huge business. That's why there are weird service contracts that promise like-for-like replacements, and why a random scrap 20Gb HDD might be worth $2 for the magnets inside, or $300 if it's some specific Dell/IBM/HP FRU that can be fitted into an unreplacable system.

The software is becoming a challenge there. Until recently, you could just pay Microsoft progressively more and more money to at least get a checkoff that you were getting support for compliance-related things. But now, you really need to find something else if you don't want PCI or HIPPA people threatening to nuke your facility from orbit. ReactOS is the closest thing we have to a lifeline there.

[Kwpolska]

I’m not sure if PCI/HIPPA/whatever auditors would have a positive reaction to ReactOS. And if the OS had issues with icons in a toolbar in 25-year-old software up until 2023, would you trust it to run the $5 million hardware?