Given Microsoft's recent moves towards a freemium desktop operating system, with its numerous privacy concerns and baked in advertising, it's great to see an actively developed alternative for those who make use of software originally developed for Windows. Lock-in is a terrible thing.
Oops, yea, I really meant the whole Windows-as-a-service direction. I could see Microsoft extending the free offer, though, since they appear to be aggressively pushing people to enroll in the service.
For most end consumers who didn't realize that they paid for a windows license when they bought their computer, it's just a free upgrade, no different than their iPhone updating.
Indeed, and I'm definitely not complaining that Win8 SP2 is a free upgrade from Win7+ ;) Still, only holders of existing Windows licenses qualify for it - "Windows for free" is something different, IMNSHO. But you are quite correct that an average consumer would see this distinction as pointless nitpicking.
Considering that people have been complaining about Windows lock-in for 2 decades, I can't really see the point. Chasing Windows compatibility is not the answer. Getting software to run on other platforms and reducing Windows dominance is more important. Make it easy for people to switch platforms so companies need to listen to consumers.
> Chasing Windows compatibility is not the answer. [...] reducing Windows dominance is more important. Make it easy for people to switch platforms so companies need to listen to consumers.
Agreed, but not everybody's seen the light, aka POSIX.
I also view ReactOS as a way to subvert Microsoft's control over users and developers who enjoy aspects of Windows-like operating systems, such as the UI or the APIs.
I think it could be a really interesting model for folks who need to run legacy Windows software in the future, as well. Instead of keeping a few XP machines around (lack of security patches and all) why not just spin up a lightweight ReactOS VM for just that one application?
Think of all the weird desktop apps, custom databases, etc. that small businesses, schools, and other non-technical orgs have baked into their workflow. Yes, eventually we'll have wonderful legacy-free versions of all of these available on the web but in the meantime wouldn't it be nice to give them some outlet to use them w/o paying an MS tax or dealing with the infinite upgrade treadmill?
I also like to think that some of the ideas implemented in this project might make it's way into things like Wine as a major side benefit. I agree this is a very important project.
