Maybe it's a sign of the relationship between Azure and Windows teams?
Multiple people I know stopped attending LFNW that year, and will not return. Hopefully other conferences like SeaGL don't fall for the Microsoft embrace scam, as it injured LFNW pretty badly.
Windows Kernel. To me best knowledge, Windows was never ported to Commodore 64 ;-)
Like dude is talking about "there is absolutely no way on earth this was written from a clean sheet only from the available public documentation.", but that's not the bar for reverse engineering systems. It is legal (if you do it right anyways) to examine, use, and disassemble software in the process of reverse engineering.
c. Restrictions. The device manufacturer or installer and Microsoft reserve all rights (such as rights under intellectual property laws) not expressly granted in this agreement. For example, this license does not give you any right to, and you may not: (skipping a few) (vi) reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the software, or attempt to do so, except and only to the extent that the foregoing restriction is (a) permitted by applicable law; (b) permitted by licensing terms governing the use of open-source components that may be included with the software; or (c) required to debug changes to any libraries licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License which are included with and linked to by the software; and
The EULA says you can reverse engineer to the extent that is legal in your jurisdiction.
The two things are also not exclusive: it might well be that MS “loves OSS” and that the ReactOS kernel was lifted wholesale from a Windows leak.
Besides, there are many who think projects like ReactOS or Mono are actually a net negative for the FOSS ecosystem, since they reduce the pressure on developers to switch away from Windows-based stacks.