[PLUG] ReactOS - lucrative opportunity?

[Keith Lofstrom]

The Sourceforge project of the month is ReactOS, an open source
functional equivalent of WinXP.  I haven't tested it yet, but it
looks nifty! 

http://sourceforge.net/blog/potm-201306/

I run about three windoze apps on a virtual Win2000 guest inside
VMWare - that was the last version of Windoze that didn't "phone
home" for permission from M$.  I look forward to upgrading that
stack to Virtualbox and ReactOS, so that the only remaining M$
code on my machine is Internet Explorer (which I run only to make
sure my web pages don't break on that broken browser).

Folks come to the clinic hoping to make their Windoze machines
dual boot.  If ReactOS works as well as I hope, and the developer
team can stay ahead of M$ attempts to redesign apps so they don't
work on it, we can offer virtualization on top of Linux instead. 

Folks wanting to do this should have at least a gigabyte of RAM
on their machine. I strongly suggest leaving the old windoze hard
drive alone, and spending $100 on a new hard drive that we will
install Linux and VirtualBox and ReactOS on.  With both drives
connected (using an external case for the old laptop drive, another
$50) we can transfer files off the old drive to the new guest. 
The old drive will still be around for warranty repairs and such.

This means big bucks for those proficient in ReactOS migration.  
The state of Oregon has thousands of WinXP machines and millions
of dollars of custom applications running on them.  The EOL for
WinXP is putting the government in a severe bind; redeveloping
all that code for Win8 would cost more millions and cause great
disruption.  Converting to ReactOS guests on a Linux host could
save the state millions now, and prevent millions more per year
from heading north to Redmond.  Over time, new custom apps running
on Linux can interact with the old apps running on ReactOS.

I can hear the John Lennon mashup now:
 "Imagine there's no Windows. 
  It's easy if you try.
  No hell in software.
  No bad upgrades to buy ..."

So who wants to take the lead on this for PLUG? 
  
Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993