Before ReactOS Around about 1996 some people formed a group called FreeWin95, with the goal to implement an operating system that would be a clone of Windows 95. Unfortunately, as with many new ambitious Open Source projects, it was stuck in a rut of endless talk about the design of the system, with no results.
ReactOS Beginnings At the end of 1997, the project had burnt out with nothing to show. Jason Filby became project coordinator and called on everyone still subscribed to the list to revive the project. It was decided that the target should be Windows NT and that there would be an emphasis on results -- on written code rather than endless talk. The project was renamed ReactOS, since the operating system's roots grew out of a dissatisfaction with Microsoft's monopoly over the operating system market. In February 1998, ReactOS began.
Steep Climbing The first few years of ReactOS were painfully slow, despite the large amounts of code that was being written. Only a few of the developers knew how to write kernel code. It was a time of only a few people writing the difficult kernel beginnings. Later, as the kernel became more complete and stable, as basic drivers such as the IDE and keyboard drivers were written, more people were able to get involved in development.
Today The kernel has come a long way and is quite stable and many APIs are complete enough for higher level work to be done. Substantial work has been done on many libraries. Initial networking code is there, but unusable for the moment. A basic implementation of the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) and a VGA graphics driver is paving the way for a GUI. The amount of developers is steadly increasing.
Near Future Soon subsystems for Java, OS/2 and DOS will be started. Code to support a GUI, with the help of the WINE project, is growing more and more complete every day. ReactOS is set to experience massive growth in the near future.
