boot/bootdata/readme.txt

   1 ========================
   2 ReactOS™ Version 0.4.x
   3 Updated July 19, 2021
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   5
   6 1. What is ReactOS?
   7 -------------------
   8
   9 ReactOS™ is an Open Source effort to develop a quality operating system that is
  10 compatible with applications and drivers written for the Microsoft® Windows™ NT
  11 family of operating systems (NT4, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista, Seven).
  12
  13 More information is available at: https://reactos.org
  14
  15
  16 2. Relationship with the WINE project
  17 -------------------------------------
  18
  19 ReactOS has always intended to work with the WINE project to share as much
  20 programming effort as possible. This mainly concerns User Mode DLLs and
  21 still happens to a degree today. Other areas of cooperation lie in
  22 applications and testing suites.
  23
  24
  25 3. Future compatibility
  26 -----------------------
  27
  28 The ReactOS project, although currently focused on Windows Server 2003
  29 compatibility, is always keeping an eye toward compatibility with
  30 Windows Vista and future Windows NT releases.
  31
  32
  33 4. Supporting other System Applications
  34 ---------------------------------------
  35
  36 The Windows NT architecture allows for subsystems, as does the ReactOS
  37 architecture. A subsystem is an implementation of the APIs of another
  38 operating system, allowing ReactOS to run applications from other systems.
  39 We are already looking at subsystems for: Java, OS/2, and DOS and possibly
  40 others in the future.
  41
  42
  43 5. Is ReactOS legal?
  44 --------------------
  45
  46 Yes we are.
  47 All the code of ReactOS has been written from scratch by our developers.
  48 We go to great lengths to ensure that the code our developers create is clean,
  49 same applies to the variety of methods we use to understand Windows internals,
  50 including clean room reverse engineering, using existing documentation freely
  51 available both in books and on the web, using extensive tests (tens of millions)
  52 which apply black box engineering methods against both public and private APIs
  53 exposed by the operating system.
  54
  55
  56 6. Tutorials
  57 ------------
  58
  59 Developer and User Tutorials: https://reactos.org/wiki
  60
  61 The tutorials contain more information on the project, compiling and testing
  62 ReactOS - amongst other topics. Contributors to the project are always welcome.
  63
  64
  65 7. Frequently Asked Questions
  66 -----------------------------
  67
  68 Some of your questions may be answered in: https://reactos.org/faq
  69 In addition, the ReactOS forum: https://reactos.org/forum
  70 may contain complementary, yet non-official, information.
  71
  72
  73 8. Authors
  74 ----------
  75
  76 This document was originally written by Jason Filby (jasonfilby@yahoo.com)
  77 and is now occasionally updated by various contributors.