[PLUG] How many open source OS projects exist?

[someone]

I found out there is an AROS project which supposedly grew
out of the AOS project.  It is an attempt to produce the
equivalent of Wine for AmigaOS.

I found out about AROS trying to google on the question 
of whether or not there are alternatives to ReactOS.  
ReactOS appears to be stuck in, 
"becoming compatible with the threading capabilities 
of Windows 2000/XP hell."

Maybe ReactOS has gone backwards in the 0.3.x releases so
far due to the audit, because of attempts to rewrite kernel 
code that is hard to account for.  I've read that there is
difficulty created by people who contribute code to the 
ReactOS project only to leave without providing any means
to contact them in the future.

The two month release time line after ReactOS 0.3.1
is looking more like a 4 month long one.  I wouldn't
want to be responsible for ReactOS's web site because 
developers got angry when it didn't represent the 
development time line accurately and people asked 
about the discrepancy on the discussion boards.  I 
asked on the NEWS board what is going on 
( I didn't know any better at the time. ).

AROS doesn't do memory protection and it's web site says
that it's impossible to do memory protection for it.  The
FAQ also says that arguing about adding certain modern
features to AROS that AmigaOS doesn't have is pointless
until something stable is produced.  This at least
suggests that AROS is easier to stabilize than ReactOS
in the short run.  But is AROS worth anything?  There
aren't any modern Amiga's being made to my knowledge
even if the Amiga's idea of plug and play really does
work.

For ReactOS, I wish the developers could find a way to 
keep it from crashing if a feature isn't implemented yet.
I suppose part of the problem is having to implement the
GUI in ring 0 of the Intel processor spec because 
Microsoft does this with Windows.  An OS that is very
protective when an unfamiliar binary wants to execute
that can back off when it knows the binary works could
have a major advantage over the current OS choices.  
Unfortunately, a kernel with this capability would be 
simply huge I imagine.

Why is the idea of creating a minimal GUI environment 
to support Firefox on top of Freedos controversial?
If I want to run Firefox in a virtual environment
as a means to protect my host system, do I really
need the average Linux or Windows environment for 
that?  Freedos has the ability to run on old 
equipment stably than even Linux can't run on.  
In theory, a lite Firefox gui for Freedos can 
bring the hardware requirements to run Firefox 
down.

I suppose 800+ Mhz systems that can run Firefox smoothly
are so common that noone cares about running it on lower
spec machines.

Are there any groups trying to build an OS and encourage
production of hardware for it that is the best of every
operating system that came before it?  What would the
best of: Linux, Windows, BSD, MacOS-X, and AmigaOS look
like?

   --  Michael C. Robinson