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Comment by selestify | Hacker News Reader

What is the point?

Do you remember IBM's OS/2? It turns out that a lot of really important systems still rely on OS/2. ATMs, ticketing machines, industrial control systems. Stuff that still has plenty of lifespan left, but would be prohibitively expensive to replace from scratch. A company called eComStation produce an OS/2-compatible operating system, with full support for modern hardware. Their clients include Boeing, Fujitsu, Alstom and Siemens.

I know of many vitally important systems that are still running on DOS, Windows 3.1 and a variety of even more obsolete platforms. I expect that Windows XP will continue to be a significant platform for several decades. If ReactOS ever gets out of beta, it'll be a boon for huge numbers of users.

Wow, great point.. I had never though about these sort of legacy systems potentially running React someday.

It is interesting what exactly does eComStation support. Is that really mission-critical or just rarely used processes that no one wants to upgrade. Given the size of 4 companies you mentioned, there is non-zero probability that they allow entire eComStation to exist as a rounding error.

I can't speak for the developers, but the reason I appreciate it and projects like it is the journey they're on. The things they've learned about Windows and it's apps, the skills they've developed, the community they've built. That on it's own is worthy of respect even if it was not of practical value itself.

We are all on our own journey and learned personal and professional things and skills. Except that most of us do not chase an express train that has left ten years ago.

They're chasing Windows xp which is a train that is waiting for them.

Xp is an empty station, not a train. In few years most apps and hardware will be incompatible with or not fully functional under xp (they already are in half). I'm not attacking reactos as you could think. I'm pointing to obvious facts that have to be dealt with for success.

If we skip practical part, ReactOS is great as any big community-driven project, because driving a big project is hard.

But how many companies will want a migration path from XP? More than you may think.

No (sane) company's migration path from XP is going to be to an open-source clone of XP developed by a small team, that offers them no guarantees whether it works, no support, and the possibility that development could stop at any time.

If there are no other options, they will. And investors may be willing to fund a company that can keep XP apps running long-term.

No sane company is still using Windows XP, given that support ended 3 years ago and development ended a decade ago.

Still being used in POS equipment and ATMs.

"XP embedded" is still supported and updated, afaik.

Until April 9, 2019 https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/18581/lifecycle-sup...

If I can offer you cloud-based access to a Windows app you need that no longer runs on hardware you can purchase, you don't have to know crap about what OS I'm running.

Now that's a startup idea.

As someone who's been involved in the emulation and preservation community on the Apple II side of things, free and open source implementations of old operating systems continue to be useful for historical research, archiving of old software, etc. etc.

It could be a nice option to have for people stuck running really old legacy Windows software.

Especially if ReactOS is able to maintain Win32 compatibility for legacy applications while also receiving community support for security updates.

ReactOS in an invaluable resource when it comes to Windows internals and reverse engineering.

Support, education and FUN spring to mind!

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