I love the concept of ReactOS, but "ready for even niche types prime time" is miles and MILES away. Decades at the current pace to even catch up and serve as "modern day Windows XP".
I don't know who you think you're "quoting" as that's a long way from what anyone said. Even going with your obtuse equivocation, you're quite wrong, there are several "niche types" or more accurately use cases that are documented on the ReactOS forums with up-times commensurate with or surpassing Windozer. The most obvious should be obvious being self-hosting...
While I am searching for a decent linux distribution, reading this post made me remember that it exists. Still, it is far from even be qualified of alpha. Yes, I knew that it was for the fun only as I don't think I belong to any niche but I wanted to try it on an old laptop for the sake of it. The USB drivers don't work fine so I can only get the black screen of death while starting from a USB key (both ISOs, btw). I tried using YUMI to run the ISO from RAM of said laptop and I got the same black screen, but as I don't know if this feature of YUMI works fine, it may mean nothing. Maybe I can install in the hard drive using an another computer and a partition copy from a VM, but I wonder if it is worth the effort. Because it does work in a VM. Quite reactive and stable except for the browser who never started. It was a good rush of nostalgia I hope this project will progress.
Yeah, that's kind of how I feel about it. I would LOVE to see them get all serious with it and actually make it a serious effort. Imagine if they could get to a Windows 2000/XP/7-ish level of polish and UI but with modern capability as far as drivers, directx/vulkan support etc. just without the Micro$oft bloat and nonsense. It would be like Linux + Windows, best of both. Hell, I'd pay for that!
Someone peed in your Cheerios, again. Months later? You do realize we're talking about how much we like the idea and your attacking me for not liking it enough? You peed in your own Cheerios...didn't you?
One thing I've been curious about with ReactOS is who the current maintainer is. Previously it was Aleksey Bragin and the project was under the custodianship of some nebulous Russian organization but now they are registered as a charitable organization headquartered in Germany. I haven't been able to find any info on who is currently the technical lead of the project now.
I'm curious too, but expect it's probably something along the lines of how FreeDOS progressed where there are maintainers for very specific parts of the OS.. In the case of ReactOS the Kernel Developer will be the most significant as far as direction and progress. I don't think ReactOS has ever been under any kind of custodianship of any Russian company or entitiy. What may have been going on is like a lot of countries there was a more intense interest in moving away from Windows and still having a compatible Windows OS, maybe a website hosting deal on that behalf as interested parties perused that potential. That Linux now runs so many native Windows binaries (in many cases better than Windows) obviates a lot of that... Still hope this project continues, at any pace!