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CowboyTeal writes:
"Windows 8 is still being disputed as either the product of a genius or a nerdy sadist but that doesn't mean Windows 9 isn't in the works. That said, how would you guys improve Windows if you could change anything about it? Has windows 8 improved or degraded your overall experience of the Windows platform? If you're not a Windows user, what features would you like to see in Windows for possible assimilation?"
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* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 3, Funny) by d on Sunday March 02 2014, @10:40AM
I'd make it Free Software. I could probably use it then.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:15AM
ReactOS is Free Software. You could probably use it right now.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by linsane on Sunday March 02 2014, @12:15PM
Have been keeping an eye on that for a while - given that they are doing it on a shoestring it is very impressive indeed. Hopefully their recent kickstarter and associated fund-raising https://www.reactos.org/donations [reactos.org] will get this to the point of widespread usability before everyone's XP support ends. Here's to hoping anyhow
(Score: 1) by tangomargarine on Monday March 03 2014, @10:11PM
From what I've been hearing the last few years, it sounds like every time I think they're about ready to fiiiiiiinally kick it into beta, they decide to overhaul and replace one of the major system components (Explorer, sound, USB...). And I can only assume that Microsoft will figure out a way to sue them to kingdom come and back as soon as they try to release a working product.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 03 2014, @03:07AM
I'll start by assuming that folks here know that ReactOS and WINE share a significant portion of their respective codebases.
Any Windoze app developer who doesn't check his executables against WINE simply shrinks his potential market.
...then there are guys who have done it right for over a decade [google.com] and whose app has become the most-used in its category (aka the industry standard) over roughly the same time period because that app is now cross-platform.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by hash14 on Sunday March 02 2014, @05:37PM
Perhaps... I'm more of the opinion that Windows is broken beyond repair. Even if you took all the community support for Linux and applied it towards Windows, you would have to deal with all sorts of badly designed legacy hacks which were just never fixed because it wasn't monetarily feasible, and then systems grew on top of these bad hacks which essentially make them impossible to fix because it would break everything. For example, just look at how terrible the OOXML standard^W specification is.
Don't get me wrong on the power of the community - I have observed it a great deal over the years and have never failed to be impressed by how much they can accomplish. Nevertheless, when you're dealing with a system that's as old and poorly designed as Windows, I don't think there's anything you can reasonably do without upsetting virtually all of your downstream vendors and users.
And let's not forget that many Windows users have this phobia of Free Software as they think openness is bad or unsecure. Unfortunately, sometimes MS's propaganda is very successful.
(Score: 1) by d on Sunday March 02 2014, @08:44PM
1. Microsoft can't really do much of its anti-opensource propaganda because much of its libraries/C# stuff is open source now.
2. Even its kernel would probably already be worth quite a lot because of the drivers. The parts that sucks could be rewritten.
(Score: 1) by hash14 on Sunday March 02 2014, @11:49PM
Business companies have no issue with hypocrisy, so they can continue spreading open source propaganda as much as they like. Everything Microsoft produces comes with a toxic stigma. They're a known patent extortionist, and nothing is stopping them from pulling an Oracle stunt and assert copyrights something that doesn't even fall over the galaxy-sized "intellectual property" umbrella that they love so much.
Microsoft - at least as long as Ballmer and his ilk are there - is still a 100% anti-open source company. That fact doesn't change just because they open sourced a library that nobody uses, or Linux drivers for HyperV because not doing so would be suicide for their cloud division.
We've been down this path before. Never trust Microsoft - they're a business company first and will screw you at whatever chance that they can.